Empathomorphosis
by Kokorozec
Summary: Penny's attempts to drive off a potential rival for Gumball's affections leads her to uncover some disturbing secrets about her ancestry, and the malicious forces behind it.
1. The Creepy New Girl

Empathomorphosis

 **A/N: I apologize if this chapter seems kinda short. It functions more as an introduction to the situation and it seemed longer when I originally typed it out than when I actually uploaded it here. We here at Kokorozek Studios hope you enjoy this story regardless.**

Chapter 1: The Creepy New Girl

It was the first day of school at Elmore Junior High. Normally, given the overall depressing atmosphere and existential dread washing over them due to the prospect of actually being back in school after summer vacation, Gumball Watterson and his adopted goldfish brother Darwin would be trying their damnedest to avoid having to use their brains at all, as a method of staying sane through the endless screed of lectures that came at the beginning of the year. Usually, this involved sleeping in class, which was far easier for Darwin to accomplish, when he remembered that he was a fish and could thus sleep with his eyes open, therefor not drawing any attention.

Or at least, that's what they would have been doing. True, they were still avoiding class, but only because principle Brown had given them a different assignment to occupy them. This task in question involved escorting a new student around the school, which the principle thought they could handle easily, given how well they handled escorting the last new student, a certain living ice cream person named Sarah G Lato. Gumball and Darwin were unable to get a word in about the consequences of that operation before being shoved off to tour the school with this new girl.

"Anyways," said Gumball with a barely suppressed yawn, "that over there is Banana Joe. He's got a raspy voice and his peel functions like clothes, kinda, except when they dont."

"Isn't he supposed to be in class?" questioned Darwin. "For that matter, why is everyone else roaming the halls when there's class going on? I thought us not being in class was kind of a big deal?"

"Darwin, I told you already, they only appear like this for as long as the story needs to introduce them, then they'll materialize back in class. Dont ask me how, that's just the way things work." With that, Darwin gave a defeated shrug, allowing Gumball to continue blithering on about the various students and faculty to the new girl.

Marley, the girl in question, was largely ignoring Gumball's words, while simultaneously trying her hardest to take them in and savor the sound of them. A sort of cat-like creature with pitch black fur and a similar physiology to the blue cat guiding her, she was far less interested in the actual words Gumball was saying and far more interested in his physical attributes. From the moment she saw him, staring at Gumball with a lustful expression was pretty much the only thing Marley was capable of doing, save for a few "uhuhs" and head nods when Gumball told her information. She was also barely able to keep her face looking somewhat normal, and not default to a look of arousal, and even then there were bits of drool that escaped every now and then. Not that it helped, because everybody who saw her could tell that she was acting weird.

Everyone, that is, except for Gumball himself, who continued to bask in the bliss of not having to be in gym class at the moment.

"And that over there," he said, pointing to a conspicuous hole in the ground that led to the earth's core, "is why you dont put banana peels in front of the coach."

"Waaaaiiit, I thought coach being out of commission was a good thing cuz we got 3 weeks off of gym?" asked Darwin

"Actually I'm pretty sure all classes were canceled and we kinda had to evacuate town due to the sudden upsurge of magma that had been building up beneath Elmore for thousands of years. Come to think of it, it's amazing how quickly we cleaned that up."

The black cat finally took her shining golden eyes off of Gumball momentarily, if only to giggle. "Oh, dont worry," she softly spoke in an attempt to sound sexy, "I'm sure those cleaning skills will come in handy once we're...together~"

Marley's flirtatious remarks were simply met with Gumball staring at her blankly for 30 seconds. "Eh, usually I'm pretty lazy about cleaning things up, so dont count on it. Ask Darwin how long it took me to clean up that half eaten yogurt from under the bed."

"That's a trick question, you NEVER cleaned that up. It's still sitting there. Festering. Plus, it's starting to glow in the dark and whisper things in Cantonese." Darwin shivered at the prospect of the yogurt mutating anywhere beyond that.

"Huh, maybe I SHOULD get rid of it."

The pitch black feline seemed to entirely block out that part of the conversation, and positioned herself as to lean against the lockers in front of Gumball. "I guess that just means our only option is for you to lick us clean. Whadda say?"

Another effort at being sultry met with another blank stare. "What, the yogurt? There's no way in a million years I'm going to eat that! Not after it's grown into a sentient and possibly hostile life form. Besides, it's orange flavor, I hate that."

Undeterred, Marley scooted closer to the object of her desire. "No silly! All you have to lick clean are the products of love...if you get what I mean."

"Products of...ah, twinkies! Everyone knows that twinkies are basically concentrated love, sugar, and diabetes rolled into a cream filled cake! Do you have any on you perchance?"

Marley scooted even closer and prepared to make another attempt at expressing her emotions to the fullest extent, but just as she opened her mouth she found the space between her and the boy she loved suddenly cut off by the face of a certain orange walking goldfish.

"Miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiind if I steal him away for a bit?" asked Darwin, then dragged Gumball down the hall before Marley had a chance to respond.

"What was that all about buddy?" asked Gumball, once the two were sufficiently far away

"Um...have you noticed something, oh, I dont know, _strange_ about this lady?"

"Well, her color-scheme kinda clashes, and she looks way to similar to me body-wise to really stand out as an original character, but otherwise she seems okay to me. Why?"

"Oh, nothing, just the fact that _she's been doing practically nothing but drool over you and use terrible inuendos for the past half hour_?" To make his case, Darwin gestured at the girl in question, who was in the process of blowing Gumball a kiss.

Gumball, however, merely shrugged nonchalantly. "I mean, I guess some of that is a little weird, but considering we share a class with multiple pieces of sentient food, sentient inanimate objects, actual ghosts, and a tyrannosaurus, her quirks are kinda mundane in comparison."

"Fair point, but dont you remember the last time a new kid obsessed over us? Not only did we have to go through that stupid tennis match, but you nearly shoved my head into a rotating fan!"

"Relax little buddy." He patted Darwin's head as though he was a pet, "She's been here half an hour and not one major disaster has happened. Usually this sort of thing happens in the space of 11 minutes. So I think we're safe."

"What if this is one of those hour long specials?" Darwin pointed out.

Gumball took a moment to consider this, since the last time they had a two parter it resulted in everyone he loved getting killed by a former background character, before quickly reasoning to Darwin that there was no way a world this fluffy and cute was going to have that dark of a storyline again. With that, he walked off, much to his friend's annoyance.

"What do you even plan to do about her?" he asked in an irate tone.

"Obviously," said Gumball, "I'm going to introduce this Marley chick to my girlfriend Penny! Surely they'll be able to bond over their mutual fascination with me, and nothing could go wrong, nor result in any long lasting consequences for any of us!"

Darwin prepared to give a blistering retort, but decided that it wasn't worth it and buried his face in his hands. This was gonna be another one of those days, and he didn't feel like sticking around to watch the school get destroyed over Gumball's dumb antics.

But hey, at least they'd probably learn some valuable moral in the end. Like "the grass is always greener" or "Croatians should be killed on sight" or "Rob Schneider is the reason why God abandoned us", or something stupid like that.


	2. The Irrational Rivalry

Chapter 2: The Irrational Rivalry

 **A/N: Remember, when using a fax, documents should always be placed facing up.**

To say that Penny Fitzgerald was confused would have been an understatement.

Now, Penny was no stranger to weirdness. Even before she broke from her peanut shell, turned out to be a shape-shifting fairy, and acquired Gumball as her boyfriend, she was plenty used to the oddities that came with living in Elmore. People who looked like chin puppets, space-time distortions, misplaced wildlife, and a creeping sense that the entire town was some sort of Genus Loci was all part of the Elmore experience. And that was on a regular day, with Gumball around things got ten times stranger. From massive catastrophes that would be fixed in the span of 11 minutes, to the utter shattering of something called the "fourth wall", life around Gumball was out of the ordinary even for those used to living in Elmore. Which was part of the reason why she loved him as much as she did.

And yet somehow, this person standing before her was an anomaly. This strange girl, almost completely cat-like in appearance but with some trace of...she wanted to say mantis, with beady golden eyes which would probably illuminate the room were it not for the inky black fur to absorb the light, just seemed deeply wrong to her in ways she couldn't describe. More to the point, however, Penny observed that this girl seemed to almost be in her own little world. In fact, she seemed barely aware of anything except Gumball, her body practically gravitating towards him as they walked down the halls towards her. Seeing anybody display this level of open sexual lust, let alone for Gumball of all people, was just something that didn't seem possible.

To say that Penny Fitzgerald was confused would have been a _serious_ understatement.

"So anyways," said Gumball as he came up to Penny, clearing her from her thoughts. "This here is Penny. This beautiful specimen is my girlfriend, my prize, the person I care for most in the entire world! Be sure to treat her like you would any other divine creation."

Penny giggled at her boyfriend's praises. "Oh Gumball, stop it! If you compliment me any harder, the sheer amount of ego inflation will probably transform me into some kind of unidentified creature that will burn your eyes with its beauty!"

"But you already do that!" They both shared a brief laugh and a romantic sigh, completely in sync. "Seriously though, according to my doctor, the way your body reflects sunlight causes me to get dangerously high doses of ultraviolet radiation. I'll probably get eye cancer in the future." The blue cat suddenly realized as the words came out of his mouth that cancer probably wasn't the most romantic thing to end on. "B-but uh...it would totally be worth it!"

Pew, nice save.

Penny couldn't help but give off a luminescent blush. Another wonderful thing about Gumball was that he was usually the type to speak his mind, even at his own expense. While some found that behavior rude, she was able to realize that when compliments came from Gumball, he really meant them, which gave his declarations all the more weight. She held his hands in hers, savoring their warmth, and reflected on how romantic he was able to make even the most casual of situations.

Or at least, it would have been romantic, were it not for the girl in her line of sight who looked like she was on the verge of a mental breakdown the moment it became clear that Gumball's heart was with someone else. That kinda killed the mood.

"G-girlfriend...?" Marley stuttered as soon as she got the message, her left eye twitching as though she was one poorly placed word away from mauling the golden fairy in front of her.

"Oh, silly me!" Gumball chimed in, "How rude of me. Penny, this is Marley. She's new and, uh, foreign I guess."

Penny stretched out her arm in greeting, but as soon as she did so the black cat violently slapped it away like a sane consumer swatting away another Harry Potter novel. "Back off, winged devil! May the foul pits of oblivion take you back from whence you came!"

In a situation like this, all Penny could do was give a nervous laughter before leaning in close to her boyfriend. "Uuuh, Gumball," she whispered, "no offense or anything, but dont you think that new girl is a little...uh...unstable?"

Gumball shrugged. "Well I mean, I _did_ say she was foreign."

"And how does being foreign account for this?" She gestured to the copious death glare being given to her by Marley.

"Well, she could be Croatian. Though I suppose they're just more straight up evil..." he offered

"I dont think she's Croatian, nobody has died here so far to-"

"Pssst!" Marley's face squished in between the two of them. "Next time you wanna whisper about me, you should try stepping more than a few feet away from me!"

The two in question quickly retracted their faces away from whispering position, Marley keeping her angry glare trained on Penny. "And for what it's worth, I'm not Croatian! Dont you dare compare me to those scum! I'm...uh...um..." her eyes darted around in panic, trying to think of an obscure country that couldn't be judged. "I'm Slovak! Yeah..."

That seemed to do the trick with Penny, who softened her expression, but Gumball simply raised his eyebrow higher at her. "Actually, that's even worse."

"Oh come on Gumball, Slovaks aren't THAT bad." Penny argued.

"Dude, they got so mad they had to share a country with the Czechs that they sold them out to the Nazis, I think they are exactly that bad. Also is it just me or does this conversation feel really racist? I dont know what came over me, sorry."

"Ahem" Marley coughed, rubbing herself against Gumball to grab his attention. "I think this conversation is also missing the contributions of a certain charismatic little kitten who's head over heels in love with a particular, extremely sexy teenage boy who's mere presence makes my girlhood feel like a lotus blossom overlooking a spring picnic on a hilltop."

Although she managed to get a look of disgust from Penny, the only attention she got from Gumball was yet another utter lack of reaction, or at best, mild confusion. "Iiiiiiiis this one of those avant garde poem thingies?" he finally said after another half minute of awkward silence. "Because for what it's worth, I'm no good at highbrow literature. I'd tell you about that time I tried to read _Ulysses_ , but this format doesn't allow for cutaway gags or flashbacks."

"AAAGH!" the black cat groaned, slamming her foot down, "I cant tolerate this level of meta humor!" With that, she launched herself up to the ceiling, attaching to it with her claws, and crawling away on it like a goddamn spider, coupled with threats directed towards Penny about drinking her spinal fluid or something like that.

"Huh. That was weird." said Gumball bluntly.

"Quite." said Penny. "For the record, that wasn't "poetry" that harlot was spewing at you, that was pure unfiltered smut. And not even the good kind."

"Again, not much of a highbrow literature person. Sorry." Gumball briefly glanced at the clock. "Aw crap," he realized, "I'm going to be late for my nondescript class. Catch you later!" With that, he gave his girlfriend a kiss on the cheek and headed off to do vaguely school related things.

* * *

After an unspecified amount of time that appeared instantaneous but was actually at least a couple hours or so was recess. Here, the students of Elmore Junior High could release whatever pent up wackiness they had yet to spend in their poorly defined classes, often with interesting results. Today, for instance, most of the kids who were outside at the moment were gathered around Gumball and Tobias, the multicolored puffy cloud person, as they attempted to prove which of them was better at Mongolian throat singing (dont ask, not even they knew why they were doing it). To save my fair readers the trouble of wondering how it turned out, the end result was that neither of them were good at it in the slightest, but Gumball eventually managed to make Tobias' ear drums shatter with a sound that was described by observers as "something akin to the gates of hell taking a shit inside a platypus", thus rendering him winner by default. Such is the way of the world

A safe distance away from it all however were Penny and Sarah G. Lato, the anthropomorphic lemon ice cream, sitting together on the bench having no part in such nonsense. Besides, they had more important things to talk about.

"So like I was saying, what's worse is that Gumball barely seems to mind! Like at all!"

"Uuuuh, I'm not sure I'm seeing the same things you are, Penny. Seems like Gumball has been doing his best to maintain his distance. What do you expect him to do, smack her away with a baseball bat?"

The golden fairy gave an adorable pout. "Maybe. At least like, a kick or something."

Off in the distance, Marley was in the crowd along with most of the students, watching the "contest" (for lack of a better term) between Gumball and Tobias. Occasionally heard urging her love interest to "kick him in the teeth where it hurts!", she was quickly drowned out by everyone else's nonsensical cheers. At any rate, she was far away enough that Penny and Sarah could talk about her freely.

"And another thing, that girl being around is making me feel things I dont normally feel. Like, I'm usually pretty calm, collected, and rational right?"

Sarah gave a reassuring nod. "Well, you are the designated nice girl of the story, so I'd say that's one of your character traits."

"Well for some reason, Marley being anywhere near Gumball makes me feel irrational irritation even though there's no chance Gumball's actually going to fall for such a sleazy bimbo like her. And yet the fear that it might happen keeps bubbling up inside me and urging me to take drastic actions! Like whacking her with a giant menorah! Is there something wrong with me?"

The ice cream girl pondered for a moment, reflecting back on the various fanfics she'd seen. "Hmm, as far as I can tell, there's two problems going on here." Sarah began. "Firstly, you seem to be afflicted with the age-old problem of couples, namely acquiring traits from your partner. Given that Gumball is impulsive, irrational, and in general kind of an awkward klutz, it makes sense that some of it has begun to rub off on you."

Penny buried her face in her hands. "We're going to be such a dysfunctional family, aren't we?"

"Secondly," continued Sarah, "and more pressing for that matter, is the fact that Marley just doesn't seem to belong here."

"What do you mean by that? Do they really act this way in her country?"

"Not like that, silly. I mean like, she doesn't belong in this narrative, this world. It's like she's some kind of outside force trying to blend in. You can tell just by looking at her, she clearly has a design that's based off of Gumball, but with pitch black fur and shiny gold eyes and a slight drippy quality about her. Furthermore, her personality isn't well defined. All she's done so far is lust after Gumball and display occasional bursts of anger followed by nonsensical statements, but that doesn't really fit a dynamic. In fact, I'd say she blah blah blah blah blah blah blah..."

Although Sarah was perfectly happy to ramble on about the metaphysics of social groups and how they relate to poorly written stories on the internet or something like that, Penny had begun to tune her out. Not that found it irritating or anything.

Well, okay, she did, but that's not the reason why she was tuning it out.

Despite how ridiculous it seemed, her worries that Gumball might actually be stolen from her by that little tramp continued to gestate in her stomach. She said it herself, the idea was totally and utterly irrational, so why did it keep feeling like a possibility? The fact that another girl showed sufficient romantic and sexual interest in her boyfriend, nevermind how hopeless that situation was, still made her feel something growing in her that until now she had not really been exposed to, at least not within herself.

Jealousy.

At once, she began to understand why Gumball acted the way he did at certain times. Like that one time she hung out with her cousin Leslie, and Gumball was quite ready to kill him to keep him from getting between the two of them. Regardless, she felt that even if her boyfriend wasn't falling for this girl in the slightest, it was still up to her to find a way to get rid of Marley, aggressively if necessary...

"...and that," Sarah continued, oblivious to being ignored, "is why you should never trust anyone who calls themselves a "third worldist" under any circumstances."

"Yeah, uh, hold that thought." said Penny, cutting her off. "Hypothetically speaking, is there anything in your vast knowledge of cheesy teenage romances about getting rid of rivals without using explicit violence?"

"Well, there WAS this one _Charlie: Werewolf Hunter_ fanfic I read where Charlie, who's actually a transgirl in this continuity, was trying to win back the love of the werewolf Seraphim, but she's an ardent pacifist, so she tries to overcome the relationship Seraphim already has with Yanderu-chan by showing him the power of real love over superficial love. Also something something invasion by extradimensional demons or something like that, it was a dumb story."

"And uh...how did she go about using the power of "real love", so to speak?"

"I dont remember, although part of it had to do with denouncing Islam in the middle of math class for whatever reason. If I recall though...I think one of the most important steps was a ritual known as 'Rounding the Bases'. They're like, four essential levels of relationship commitment that can turn a normal teenage fling into a lifelong partnership. At least, that's what the author claimed."

"And these bases are...?"

"Oh, right! Well, legend has it, that the first base is-"

Unfortunately, that was as far as she got before she was cut off by something truly horrific. For at this exact moment, Gumball achieved victory in the Mongolian throat singing contest by bellowing a demonic noise that would make ordinary mortals crap their pants with their own intestines. In addition to this hellish sound bursting the eardrums of one Tobias, it caused various other injuries to some of the other bystanders, with Alan the balloon instantly popping, Carmen the cactus crying blood, and in the case of Sarah, causing her head to straight up melt, rendering her unable to talk. To Penny's joy, the vibrations at least seemed to cause Marley to partially melt before she suddenly sprouted insectoid wings and flew away.

Fortunately, these sorts of horrific injuries happen often enough that the universe around these parts has a way of miraculously correcting them, but for now, Sarah G. Lato was out of commission. Which meant that it was up to Penny Fitzgerald to get answers about the legendary Rounding of the Bases, save her relationship with Gumball, and drive off that demon-spawn once and for all.


	3. The Interlude

Chapter 3: The Interlude

 **A/N: Today's chapter was written under the influence of only the most natural of narcotics. Remember, if it's natural, it has to be safe!**

Most people are able to manage fine without mindless electronic entertainment. True, there would be a bit of a shock at first, but one would be able to adjust to the subtler pleasures of life, be it books, nature, or sacrificing infidels to Melek Taus. Gumball and Darwin, however, were not most people.

Gumball Watterson's aforementioned victory over Tobias due to vocals from hell came at a cost. In addition to shattering most of the windows in town and injuring fellow students, the soundwaves somehow managed to be atonal enough to create a makeshift EMP, blanketing everything in a five mile radius. So our heroes returned home to the nasty surprise of nonfunctioning computers and disabled game consoles. Although a harrowing sight, they were able to put their years of mental training into practice and resist the onset of despair.

For all of ten seconds.

"D-darwin..." Gumball gasped, every syllable strained as though he was suffocating under a pile of molten sand, "...I...can feel myself...fading..."

Darwin was in no better condition. "It's too late...this is a bug hunt man...a bug hunt! Game over man...game over..."

"Oh come on! It's barely been a minute and you two are already acting like babies! And this is coming from someone who's only 5 years old."

The shrill voice from outside Gumball and Darwin's room came from none other than Anais, their little sister. Despite being a 5 year old, Anais was by far the most competent member of the household (save possibly for their mother), and more importantly had the least tolerance for the bullshit that came from the rest of her family. Knowing that Gumball was entirely at fault for his own problems just made her even more irritable.

Despite his great imagined pain from video game deprivation, Gumball nevertheless mustered up enough energy to attempt a retort. "Shut up Anais! We're managing this like adults!" He let out another audible groan of boredom, in sync with Darwin.

Anais crossed her arms and gave the two of them her best sarcastic look. "I challenge you to find me a single child, let alone an adult, that is currently acting as immaturely as you two about the lack of video games."

Of course, just as she finished that sentence, all three of them heard an audible moan coming from downstairs, originating from a certain Richard Watterson, resident fat guy and unemployed manchild. "Kiiiiiiiiiiiids!" their father shouted, in a manner not unlike a child asking their mother for ice cream money, "There's no more food in the fridge! How am I supposed to stave off my crippling despair from the lack of television without consuming extreme quantities of fooooooood?"

Gumball picked his face off of the ground to deliver a look of satisfaction. "Looks like that's one point for Gumball, zero for annoying little sister! Hi-five me, Darwin."

"I...cant...reach..." moaned Darwin.

"Eh, neither can I, just hi-five the air in my general direction and I'll do the same."

The two proceeded to awkwardly flail an arm, attempting an "air-five" before their arms gave out from exhaustion and collapsed with the rest of them flat on the floor. Anais simply pinched the bridge of her nose, muttering to herself that having these two as siblings was a sign that God was evil. "You know what, forget it. This entire family is hopeless. I'm going back to my room to entertain myself the way people did for thousands of years before video games existed."

"Concubines?" asked Darwin.

"No you idiot, I'm talking about books! You know, those things that if you had used, would have given you actual functioning brain cells right now! Also, ew, that's disgusting."

"Whaaaat? I saw it on the History Channel! They mentioned it in some show where a guy with crazy hair talks about how aliens actually intervened in the Civil War or something. Anyways, I think you're quite mistaken, the terms 'book' and 'entertaining' should never be used in the same sentence, unless there's a 'not' in there somewhere."

Now it was Anais's turn for a look of smugness. "Oh really? Got anything better?"

Darwin pondered for a moment. "Hmmm, good point. Hey Gumball, you got any ideas?"

"Maybe we could try to lick our belly buttons again. That'll kill a few hours."

Unwilling to put up with the eternal inanity of her brothers any longer, Anais stormed off to her room, and returned within seconds with a large pile of books. Darwin barely had time to mentally process a question before his little sister chucked the entire pile at him, burying him and Gumball in several gigawatts (approximate measurement) of tomes before he could even ask what was going on.

"There!" said Anais, with a mixture of triumph and exasperation. "I refuse to let this family get any dumber than it already is! Dont bother struggling, the easiest way to get out of a book pile is to actually read a couple of them, then the entity should let you go. Now if you excuse me, I'm going to see if I can get through to dad without using violence." With that, she headed on downstairs with a huff, leaving her brothers to the agonizing fate of self education.

* * *

Just a few blocks down, Gumball's favorite shape-shifting winged reindeer fairy wasn't having a whole lot of luck either. Not due to boredom, mind you, for she was very good at finding ways to entertain herself. Having the attention span necessary to sit still and read certainly helps with that. Rather, her problem came from something a bit more personal, and in this case, far more plot oriented.

For as it happened, Penny's search for the meaning of "The Bases" was proving a lot harder than she had initially thought it would be. The EMP not only melted Sarah before she could provide any answers, but had also disabled the internet, preventing her from simply using google, and thus not exposing herself to a couple additional chapters of wacky hijinks. But that would be too easy, and in the land of Elmore things never work the way you plan them to, unless you plan on things not working. Regardless, with the internet out of commission, and most of her friends suffering injuries thanks to her boyfriend's throat singing of doom, she reasoned that if she wanted any information on "The Bases", she only had one option left.

Her parents.

Even though it was Gumball who managed to calm her down and stop her rampant shape-shifting when she came out of her shell, when no one else did, Penny's parents still weren't entirely enthusiastic about their relationship. She couldn't really blame them, considering the awful reputation the Wattersons had around Elmore for being the cause of nearly every disaster, but Gumball was still her boyfriend, and she would appreciate it if they weren't so dismissive of him. True, it's better than the outright hostility they once held, but she certainly felt they could put a little more trust in him.

As it happened, her dad wasn't home from whatever poorly defined job he was at, so the first person to go to was Mrs Fitzgerald. Penny had a slightly easier time talking to her mother about boy problems, because unlike her dad, her mom was better at hiding her displeasure with Gumball's mere existence. Of course, this wasn't to say that she liked him any more than Mr Fitzgerald, but she would be less prone to overprotectiveness and anger. And so, the first moment she could, Penny interrupted her mother from the very important task of "binge eating as much ice cream as possible before it melts due to a lack of a working fridge" to sit her down and get her to listen to her troubles.

"Soooo...basically..." Penny began, trying to word things as delicately as possible. "Let's say, under hypothetical circumstances, I was having some slight trouble with my relationship due to-"

She barely got even partway through her explanation before Mrs Fitzgerald assumed the worst possible scenario, nearly spitting out the foodstuffs being shoveled into her mouth. "Oh dear, sweetie, what did Gumball do to you this time?"

"He didn't do anything to me!" Penny asserted. "Honestly mom, could you at least pretend like you have some faith in my boyfriend?"

"Isn't this the same boyfriend who accidentally burned our house down?"

"Okay, so he's a walking disaster area, but he's still a really sweet guy! Look, could you at least let me finish before you start making uncalled for value judgments?"

Mrs Fitzgerald let out a sigh. "Alright, fine, please continue." she said with some reluctance, deciding that it would probably be easier to let this one go rather than enter another argument with her daughter about how dangerous Gumball was to be around.

Penny dropped the pretense of this being a hypothetical situation, but otherwise continued to explain exactly where she left off. She told her mom about everything that happened that day, from the creepy new girl obsessing over Gumball like he was the holy grail, to Gumball seemingly not noticing what a creep this chick was being, and not doing enough to drive her away. How she felt uncharacteristic jealousy and loathing, even though such things were against her nature, and her plan of reaching what she called "romantic apotheosis". As her mother gave a look of increased skepticism, Penny realized that it sounded a whole lot less stupid in her head.

Mrs Fitzgerald, who had been doing her best to pay attention in between gorging on half-melted ice cream, was already finding this discussion to be rather outside her comfort zone. "Alright..." she said cautiously, "so what do you want me to do about it?"

Penny took a deep breath. This was the critical moment. "So, the gist of it is that according to all the sources I've consulted, the only way I'm going to drive this Marley bitch off is by doing the ritual of 'rounding the bases' with Gumball. Do you have any idea how that sort of thing works?"

The room was filled with an awkward silence and a pause in ice cream eating the moment Penny uttered the phrase "rounding the bases with Gumball". After about 15 seconds, however, she suddenly heard her mother begin to laugh, which started softly but quickly turned maniacal after a short period of time. Only a few moments later, Mrs Fitzgerald had fallen out of her chair, curled up in the fetal position and laughing a sort of crazed, depressive laughter like that of a man who watched The Room for the first time.

"Mom...are you okay?" asked Penny, even though it was pretty clear she wasn't.

"Oh...no...I'm fine dear!" her mom said, in between bits of laughter. "I've just finally gone mad is all! I just heard my teenage daughter ask me how to get physically intimate with Gumball Watterson! Aahahahah, my mind is coming apart at the seams!"

As Mrs Fitzgerald continued gwuffling hysterically, Penny audibly groaned out of annoyance. Her mother clearly wasn't going to be any help, and if her reaction was any indication, her dad would likely be of even less help. The mango-colored deer fairy stormed off to her room, muttering to herself about getting new parents after she figured out what these bases were.

* * *

Off in the distance, perched upon the top of Elmore's rainbow factory, a certain dark furred cat girl was still in the process of recovering from the sonic blast of death from a few hours ago. She had managed to successfully retract her wings and mandibles after a short period of time, preventing her from looking like a total freak, but her cat form kept fluctuating and refusing to stay solid. Pieces of her were still dripping off her body every now and then, so while she didn't look like an outright monster, she now just looked like a girl who spent all day in a tar pit.

Marley couldn't believe her luck. First, her target turned out to be utterly oblivious. Next, her target's girlfriend proved to be a decent person without sufficient personality flaws for her to exploit. And THEN her cover nearly broke when that stupid blue cat tried to throat sing, or whatever it was he was doing.

Why couldn't that tainted piece of treasonous garbage had fallen in love with someone easier to manipulate? Lamenting her awful circumstances, Marley looked up towards the heavens. As hard as her task was, she knew she had to complete it at any cost. Father had made it clear to her that this was extremely important, and though she didn't know why it was so important, she had been around Father long enough to know that the consequences of displeasing him were very undesirable. If she did what she was made for, he might actually love her. She was his creation, after all.

The black cat's insectoid mandibles popped out as she began to consider her options. Perhaps it was time for a more...directly violent approach.


	4. The Bases of Incompetence

Chapter 4: The Bases of Incompetence

 **A/N: They say that one has to put "blood, sweat, and tears" into a story to make it good, but I tried using all three and none of them make for a very good ink.**

As it turns out, the town of Elmore was able to bounce back surprisingly quickly. The power came back online later that evening, just in time for Gumball to find his way out of the book pile while successfully managing to not educate himself. Bizarrely enough, he found that the pile of books had shifted back to Anais's room in the time it took for him to get out, even though he detected no movement whatsoever. He would have dug Darwin out right there and then, but realized with his brother and roommate out of commission, he finally had another opportunity to look at some very embarrassing images on the internet.

Thus, poor Darwin was left in a sea of intellectualism, and unlike Gumball he did not possess the iron will required to resist reading any of the swarm of books that filled his existence. Unwilling to let this nightmare go on for any longer than it had to, he closed his eyes, picked a book at random that seemed short and easy, and began to dive in and absorb whatever bits of philosophy were included inside. Satisfied, the sentient mass of books spat Darwin out after a few minutes, but even still he sat in Anais's room, continuing to read for the next couple hours. By the time he felt like he had read enough, it was nighttime, and young Darwin felt too inspired to simply go to sleep. No, he had to put this new philosophy in action...

When Gumball awoke the next morning, he was greeted by the sight of boxes of sugary cereals, junk food that mom would never let them get, and various pieces of electronic paraphernalia,, arranged in a sort of pile. This mound of stuff was topped off by Darwin himself, standing at the peak with a black flag in hand and a triumphant look on his face. The only reason Gumball didn't have a bigger immediate reaction was due to how sleepy he was, so the only thing he could think of to say was "Duuude, where'd you get the stuff?"

"Well duh, it's my property!" Darwin answered. "I learned yesterday evening while you so rudely left me for dead that everything in my sight is my property, I just have to claim it as such! With this in mind, I sneaked out of the house after dark and, uh, requisitioned some choice items."

Gumball's awakening process was accelerated by the increased sensation that something really, really bad had happened. "Wait...but...dude, is that a new smart phone? That's like hundreds of dollars! We cant afford that!"

"Of course we cant afford it! That's why I didn't pay for it, duh!"

"Oh, that makes sense." Suddenly, the realization hit Gumball with the strength of a B-17 bomber. "WHAT? YOU STOLE IT?!"

Darwin shrugged. "Long story short, yes. It's not like those stores are going to miss any of this stuff, especially with how cheap it is to produce."

Gumball could barely believe what he was hearing. His own brother committing next-level shoplifting was bad enough, but the fact that Darwin seemed to see nothing wrong whatsoever in what he was doing was even worse. "B-b-but you cant DO that!" he practically screamed, desperate to control his volume so that mom or Anais didn't overhear.

"Actually, yes I could. It's not very hard, the security systems at the supermarket are dubious at best even when the electrical grid is fully functioning, which it wasn't thanks to you, and once you realize that most cameras in stores dont actually work and are just there for show, it makes your job a lot easier."

"That's not what I mean!" said Gumball, straining to find the right words to express just how bad this situation was. "You cant just take things from stores! It's...well it's wrong! It's illegal and-"

"Spooks."

"...what did you just say?"

"Sorry, but everything you've just said is chock full of spooks."

It took Gumball every fiber of his being not to scream various profanities. "And what is THAT supposed to mean?"

"Simple." explained Darwin, as though this should have been obvious, "A spook is an abstract concept that only actually has meaning if you choose to give it power. What you tried to invoke on me, morality and the law, are both spooks that I choose not to recognize. I have benefited both myself and this household with luxury items, and have not been caught doing so, thus as far as I can tell I've had no losses whatsoever from this path!"

Gumball tried his best to think of a retort. Unfortunately, he was never the type of person that was good at political or philosophical arguments, and he never took Darwin to be the type that was interested in it either. Hell, this seemed entirely out of character, as though being stuck in that book pile changed his outlook on life. _Well, I suppose that serves me right for looking at porn rather than helping my brother_ he thought to himself.

"Besides," Darwin continued, "it's not like either of us are a stranger to morally dubious actions. From what I remember, you've cheated on tests, killed a man multiple times to figure out how he comes back to life and subsequently create an army of clones, and drove our friend Rob into being a villain with your neglect and selfishness. So if you're talking ethics, you dont really have a leg to stand on."

The sky-colored feline paused momentarily to consider this. Technically, his brother was absolutely correct. Between murder, illegal cloning, rampant property damage, and nearly turning the town into a Mad Max style dystopia on at least one occasion; shoplifting, even at this scale, was pretty light in comparison. Plus, he at least seemed to know what he was doing...

"Alright, fine." he relented. "Just as long as you make sure nobody else finds out."

"Too late for that, Anais and I have known since Darwin told us at 6 am." This authoritative yet stressed and tired female voice came from none other than Nicole Watterson, resident mother and resident breadwinner. She stood in front of the doorway, her face clearly showing signs of resignation and sleep deprivation. "I could barely even get a word in before he started spewing philosophical jargon in our faces. Then he called everything I said a "spook", whatever that means. And then when I tried to ground him, he simply declare that my authority was also a spook. And violence is out of the question, because then I'll just get reported to the "authorities" or whatever."

Gumball's mouth slowly dropped as he took in these startling revelations. "In short," Nicole continued, "fuck this, I'm outta here." With that, she plodded out of Gumball's room and down the stairs, making it halfway before falling asleep and tumbling over.

Entirely unfazed by the current conversation, Darwin pulled a small book out of his hammerspace. "For what it's worth, if you want to be free of silly little things like having to brush your teeth, just read this book and it'll all make sense!" With that, he chucked the book at Gumball's face.

His brother let out a small yelp upon impact, then picked up the book and read the cover. " _Hippity Hoppity, Everything's My Property_? What kind of title is that?"

"The title of a book that's going to free your mind and open you up to the universe of insurrectionary thought!"

"...yeah, at this point, you just sound like some kind of self help guru who's lost his mind in the jungles of Vietnam and commands an army of monkeys. Like that one movie."

Darwin shook his head. Clearly, it was going to be a while before the rest of his family would come to their senses and experience the enlightenment of ignoring everything that's inconvenient. Perhaps they were just not ready. Suddenly remembering that the fruits of his "labor" were just sitting there, he convinced Gumball to drop the argument for now in favor of gorging on sugary cereals. His brother agreed (for he was not one to pass up stuffing his face with junk food), and together they spent the rest of the morning alternating between eating and basking in the bliss of a sugar coma.

As you probably guessed by now, school was canceled all over Elmore that day. For reasons not yet fully understood by modern science and metaphysics, Gumball's vocals of doom managed to resonate at the exact frequency as common red bricks, typically used for building chimneys and schools. Thus, it was the education systems that took the greatest hit from yesterday's disaster, and for the remaining week schools would be out of commission as construction workers tried to rectify the structural damage sustained.

In such circumstances, most of the students of Elmore Junior High took it upon themselves to make the most out of this extended summer vacation, as it were. Usually, this took the form of catching up on sleep, spending time with friends, or to take notice of the various inanimate objects around Elmore that come alive when they think nobody's looking. For a group of girls including Molly Collins the sauropod, Teri the paper bear, and Penny Fitzgerald, this quality time consisted of hanging out in Molly's tree house for the afternoon, enjoying the outdoors from the comfort of a glorified elevated shed.

Molly's tree house wasn't anything particularly special. It was standard in design, made from wood planks with a makeshift opening for a window and a sanded down floor to allow one to sit without getting splinters. However, that didn't matter too much to Molly, who was perfectly happy keeping things simple and unassuming. Besides, what happened inside the tree house was a lot more important to her than the actual tree house appearance itself. From gossiping about other students, to the ever important activity of talking about boys, Molly's tree house was the go-to destination for many of Gumball's female classmates whenever they felt like meeting up as a group.

However, with Teri leading the conversation, the topic invariably revolved around horrific bodily maladies.

"...and that," the paper bear concluded, "is how one can, in fact, cough up your own lungs. I hope you all use plenty of disinfectant from now on!"

The black sauropod's face was a mixture of horror and disappointment. Horror because, well, Teri had just answered a rhetorical statement in extremely gross detail. The disappointment, however, came from the poor turnout. Usually, the tree house had a few more people in it when they got together, but Misami the cloud was still recovering from eating a bad minimall rotisserie chicken, Leslie the flower was spending the day getting his roots painted, Carrie Krueger the ghost had left just a few minutes ago to pull a prank on her boyfriend Darwin, and Sarah G Lato had to visit her dying second cousin twice removed in Yutica. Even though they all had valid reasons (sort of), Molly couldn't shake the feeling that her friends found her boring and didn't want to spend time with her.

The absence of Sarah was of particular concern to Penny, who still needed answers about the legends and myths concerning "the bases". Her mother wasn't any help, and she didn't dare go to her father for romance advice, so they were out of the question too. Considering how vital this supposedly was to a successful romantic relationship, finding out information on this subject was proving very difficult. She briefly pondered that maybe this was why the divorce rate in America was so high.

"Penny, are you alright?" asked a concerned Molly. "You've been sitting looking all worried the entire time you've been here. Is there something on your mind? Y-you're not planning on leaving too, are you?"

"Oh, no! It's not that at all! It's just...well..." Penny took a moment to compose herself and figure out how to phrase her problem. "Well...the thing is...I think I might need some relationship advice."

"Well, unfortunately, neither Teri or I have been in a long term relationship. Most boys seem to find me dull and uninteresting, but I cant imagine why!"

"Not to mention, romantic actions are a breeding ground for horrible diseases! If you make out too much, you'll get a mutated version of cooties! I mean, you DO know that the inside of your mouth has more germs than a toilet seat, right?"

The golden fairy sighed. Although Molly and Teri assured her that they would be happy to help, Penny didn't feel confident that they knew anything at all. Still, she figured it wouldn't hurt to try. "The thing is..." she began, again attempting to find the right words, "look, you should understand that it's not really Gumball's fault, exactly. He cant help if he's ignorant, that's just the way he works. It's just uh...you know...well it's not Gumball's fault but it kinda is a little but it's unfair to blame him and-"

"This is about Marley, isn't it?"

"Oh, you've met her too, Teri?"

"Met her?!" Teri practically gasped with horror. "I'm pretty sure I caught a disease just by looking at that walking biohazard! She left a trail of saliva on the floor! That beast is going to get us all infected with the pox!"

"During lunch, she asked if she could borrow my pen." added Molly.

The other two girls looked at her, anxiously waiting for her to follow up on her story. "...and?" Penny finally said.

"Nothing, that was all! Isn't that interesting? I've never had someone borrow a pen from me before!" The sauropod beamed a bright smile, the simple event of handing someone a pen being as exciting to her as winning the lottery. "Although when I asked for it back, she said she ate it or something. Oh well!"

Penny pouted, the mere thought of that cat making her angry. "Look, the point is, that creepy little goblin is stalking Gumball and harrassing him, and I need to find a nonviolent method to get her to stop!"

Teri raised an eyebrow. "Shouldn't your boyfriend be able to handle his own problems? If he's able to handle nearly destroying our town on a regular basis, I think getting a girl off him shouldn't be hard. All he has to do is be himself! That'll scare anyone off!"

The paper bear's remark came at a price, for she found herself on a receiving end of a slap from Penny. Being made of, well, paper, such a force sent her flying against the wall. "Honestly, could you people at least TRY to hide your dislike of him until after I'm not around?"

"I dont dislike him at all." said Molly. "In fact, I think he's really sweet! He and Darwin went through all that trouble that one time to give me an interesting story to tell."

"Y-yeah, calm down Penny, I was just kidding..." Teri slowly peeled herself off the wall.

"Right..." Penny's expression softened. "Anyways, as I was going to say, the trouble is that Gumball doesn't know she's being an aggressive, creepy stalker! He just thinks she's being regular creepy or trying to do some kind of joke or whatever."

"Didn't she outright grab his butt at one point the other day?" asked Teri.

"Exactly! It's just my luck, my boyfriend happens to be completely oblivious to overt sexual flirting. Like, he thought that her awful smut was some attempt at hi-brow literature! Those things are completely and utterly mutually exclusive!"

"Vladimir Nabokov would like to have a few words with you." said Molly.

"Look, the point is, Gumball is having trouble driving this hell-beast off, and I need a way to do that without hurting her too badly. According to Sarah, the best way I can do it is by completing a ritual with Gumball known as "rounding the bases", or something like that. Do either of you know about it?"

Molly giggled in amusement. "Oh, that's easy! Even I know all about that."

Penny gasped in a combination of relief and excitement. "You do? Please tell me! I need to know everything!"

"It's simple. The first base involves staring at a boy from a long distance..."

"Uhuh...?"

"The second base involves giving the object of your desire a firm handshake..."

"That seems kinda too easy, but if you're sure..."

"The third one is, like, you have to fondle his knees or something..."

"You dont actually know, do you."

Molly's eyes went to the floor. "No," she admitted, "I've never been able to get a straight answer either. But I'm pretty sure I have home plate correct!"

"And what's that?" she asked, trying to keep the confidence in her voice.

"According to some high school dude I met, it involves "furious dry humping". Which I think is a metaphor for telling really bad, off color jokes. Like about black people! Get it? Cuz it's off color, and black people are...uh...of color...?" Molly attempted a desperate smile, but it did nothing to alleviate the awkward silence and blank stares from Teri and Penny.

"Well," said Teri, breaking the silence after 30 seconds, "I can at least say for certain that you're almost entirely wrong about the bases!"

"So wait, do you know what they are?" asked Penny

"Sure! The bases," exclaimed Teri, as she pulled out a complex medical chart from her pocket, "are a code term for the stages of cooties infection. During the first "base", the eggs laid by the butterflies in your stomach begin to infest the intestinal tracts, causing copious farting and gurgling noises. Base two has the neurotoxins from the eggs infect your lymph nodes, causing you to break out into pinkish hives that spread more cooties to anyone who touches them! By the third stage, the toxins have reached your brain, causing a euphoric sensation so that you dont notice the awful pain of dying from dysentery!"

"That sounds awful!" gasped Molly, entirely credulous. "What's home plate?"

"Furious dry humping, like you said, but it's a metaphor for the desire to ride a horse into the sunset, and not a poor attempt at cracking racist jokes. I think it comes if you somehow survive the breakdown of your digestive system, though I cant imagine how that works."

Penny sighed, something she realized she was doing an awful lot of the last couple days. "It's alright girls, maybe I'm just getting a bit paranoid. Sarah did mention something about the traits of a loved one rubbing off on a person, and I guess I've caught Gumball's irrational jealousy."

"To be fair, that Marley chick is probably going to be a danger to him at some point." added Teri.

"Hey, girls, can I ask you something?"

The other two girls in the tree house nodded their heads.

"Is it weird that I love Gumball so much that my antlers get sweaty?"

"Not at all! That happens to me too!"

"...it does sound pretty unhygenic, but I suppose it's natural."

Penny continued. "Is it also weird that I think about Gumball all the time, even in the bathroom?"

Teri and Molly both responded in the negative.

"And is it weird that I would totally have agreed to Gumball's proposal and married him on the spot if it was legal for me to do so?"

Penny's last question was followed by an awkward moment of silence as Teri and Molly looked at each other uncomfortably. "Aaaactually, yeah, that's a little weird." Molly finally spoke up. "But it's kinda sweet that you two are so devoted to each other!"

The three would have continued discussing this, but as Teri opened her mouth to add how unhygenic marriage tends to be, the girls heard a sharp _CLANG_ from below. Before they could even question what it was, the noise was followed by two more _CLANG_ sounds, followed by a subdued "aagh!" Turning their heads to the outside, they beheld something rather startling.

On the ground before them, at the base of the tree, lay Marley, sprawled out on the lawn with a cracked ax in hand. Despite the monumental damage done to the ax, the tree was not dented in the slightest, and if anything was causing the girl more damage from recoil than she was giving it through brute force. After a few moments of struggling, she rose to her feet and laid that ax into the tree as hard as she could, only to have it break entirely and the handle flying back, clonking her in the head.

Molly looked rather pleased with herself. "Huzzah! I knew that adamantium tree would come in handy one of these days?"

"Why did you get an adamantium tree when you could have just gotten a normal one?"

"Well duh, Penny! Dont you remember that time when Banana Joe chopped down my tree house? I figured that if someone tried that again, I might as well be prepared. So I had a tree crafted out of unbreakable metal and covered with bark to look like a normal tree! Pretty cool, right?"

"That seems...excessive..." Penny looked down to see Marley was still going at it, now attempting to straight up punch the tree down. To her surprise, the black cat was actually managing to make slight dents in it with her fists.

Marley noticed her target looking out the window, and flailed her limbs in a desperate attempt to climb the tree. "RAWRG! GET DOWN HERE AND FIGHT ME, COWARD!"

Penny chuckled nervously. "I...think I'll stay up here for the time being, thanks."

"TREACHEROUS SCUM! YOU WILL PAY FOR THE SINS OF YOUR FOREFATHERS! HIYAAAAAAH!"

At that moment, Marley somehow managed to punch the tree hard enough to lodge her entire right arm inside of it. Unfortunately for her, she could not muster up the same force to actually pull her arm back out again, and for the next minute or so flailed around some more as she struggled to free herself. "Uh...hey, this is kinda awkward, but can one of you ladies get me out of here?"

Although Penny was normally inclined to help people out of bad situations, even if they themselves weren't particularly nice, her goodwill towards Marley had run out a long time ago. "Eh, I'm sure you'll figure a way out eventually."

"You pompous jackass! A POX UPON YOUR ENTIRE WORLD! WHEN I GET OUT OF HERE, I WILL RAIN BATTERY ACID ON YOUR HOUSES AND DRINK YOUR LYMPH NODES! Ouch! I think I broke something there..."

Marley continued wildly thrashing about in an attempt to release her arm, but it did little good. Although she managed to get part of it out, her struggling resulted in her left hand straight up smushing against the tree as though it were made of black clay. To the confusion of the girls in the tree house, Marley didn't even seem to react to this in the slightest, and instead opted to impotently kick at the tree.

As the girls turned away to continue talking, Penny saw something funny out of the corner of her eye. It might just be periphreal vision screwing with her, but she could have sworn she saw the black splat that was Marley's left hand move on its own accord, trying to connect with the stump on her arm. Whatever it was, she quickly shrugged it off. "So anyways," Penny began, trying to get the conversation onto something that was more relaxed, "Molly, I believe you had another story you were going to tell us?"

"Oooh! I do! Though, this one isn't by me, it's actually some kind of old legend or whatever."

"What's it called?" asked Teri eagerly, figuring that this story wouldn't be boring if it wasn't actually made by Molly.

"Well, have any of you ever heard the tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise?"


	5. The Quickening

Chapter 5: The Quickening

 **A/N: You're reading a Gumball fanfic! When you could be outside, doing something else.**

Even a teenager charged with unfathomable energy from multiple days off school has their limit, and as luck would have it, Gumball's limit was the Sunday night before schools resumed. The blue feline had expended his energy over the past week living it up like a king on Darwin's stash of loot, as well as a few shenanigans involving a skateboard, a box of cranberries, two springs, and a VERY aggressive man from Wisconsin. But much like the lifespan of a forced meme, it was all too short lived. Of course, he was too tired to really think about that in depth, stretching out his arms and yawning deeply as he prepared to doze off.

And he probably would have been able to do so, were it not for a sudden thud against the window.

Gumball snapped out of his state of pre-slumber and directed his attention towards the window. Even though it was dark outside, Gumball's night-vision that comes with being a cat allowed him make out a vaguely humanoid shape outside of his room. Well, okay, night vision, and the fact that said shape was covered in golden glitter, which reflects light pretty easily. It wasn't anything Gumball immediately recognized, but if he squinted his eyes and looked from a distance, it almost looked like Penny...

The figure at the window knocked again. "Yoohoooo~!" said a muffled voice from outside, in a poorly disguised voice that the blue cat was immediately able to recognize. "It is I, Penny! Who is your girlfriend! You seem to have accidentally left your window locked for the third night in a row!"

Gumball couldn't even muster up the energy to glare angrily, instead opting to choose an expression that fell somewhere between disappointment and exhaustion. "Look Marley," he began, pinching the bridge of his nose, "if you want to try to disguise yourself as Penny, you're going to have to put more effort into it than covering yourself in sequins, or whatever that is on you."

"Penny" merely smiled ever wider, struggling to hold back the tremble in her body. "Haha...you're so funny honey! Now, open the window so we can do...um...whatever night time ritual we normally do!"

"Penny and I dont have a night time ritual. Also, I keep the window locked so that folks like you cant sneak in my room in the middle of the night." Gumball gazed to the side, remembering Sarah's previous antics and stalkerish behavior. "Aint nobody going to wear my clothes but me, thank you very much."

Gumball noticed that the only reason the black cat standing before him looked like Penny from a distance at all was because she attached cardboard "antlers" to her head. She didn't even bother to paint them gold. Despite the glaring flaws in her disguise, Marley continued undeterred. "Oh, dont be silly Gummy. Locked windows haven't stopped me from getting inside your bedroom! It's just kinda inconvenient having to go down the chimney and all that. I mean, your window might have been locked other times but I wasn't sure, considering I had spent the previous nights sitting at a distance snapping naked pictures of you. I'm going to treasure those forever~"

Immediately, Gumball zipped to his door, making sure not only to lock it, but also shove a desk in front of it for good measure. Unfortunately, this still did not drive away the golden-eyed feline, who was now in the process of using her claws to cut a hole in the window. To Gumball's surprise, not only was she actually able to cut a circle in the glass, she managed to squeeze herself through it despite said circle being way too small, almost like she was part octopus or something.

Which meant Marley was inside Gumball's room. Just two steps away from her beloved. With no way for him to escape.

Uttering a couple explitives, Gumball quickly dived into Darwin's pile of junk to grab an overly-large Nerf gun, pointing it directly at Marley with the barrel no more than a few inches away from her face before she managed to try anything. "Stay back, demon of the night!" he shouted, the gun clearly trembling in his hands despite his best attempts at keeping his composure. "If you come any closer, indiscriminate...uh...non-lethal but very annoying force WILL be used!"

Most people would at the very least be nervous at having a gun pointed directly at them, but as you've probably guessed by now, Marley wasn't most people. Her ever-present smile continued even as she was staring down the barrel of a toy machine gun. "C'mon, you and I both know you wouldn't open fire on a cute girl like me, would y-?"

Her answer was received in the form of a few blasts of Styrofoam bullets. To her surprise, there was a lot of force behind them considering they came out of a toy gun for children, but not really enough to send her back any meaningful distance. "Owie!" she yelped, putting on a pouty face. "You didn't need to shoot me like that! For Styrofoam bullets, those are surprisingly hard! I just came here to give you a present..."

"Present...?" Gumball lowered his toy gun slightly out of cautious anticipation, but still kept it aimed pretty well at the black cat's head.

"Yeah! To prove to you that I do, in fact, love you more than anything, I made you some nice pancakes!" Marley reached into some indescribable hammerspace and pulled out a perfectly intact plate with a stack of pancakes, covered in a weird pinkish syrup.

"Uh...thanks?" Gumball carefully lowered his weapon and slowly grabbed the plate of pancakes out of Marley's hands, setting them off some distance to the side. Tempting as they were to eat, he was smart enough to realize that anything covered in a pink, bubbling substance that seemed to spontaneously generate little hearts was probably a bad idea.

He noticed that the black cat was still standing before him, her face blushing like crazy despite her fur color. Then there was silence. That kind of extremely awkward silence that usually follows when you've confessed something deeply personal, or the kind that follows when you make a really stupid joke and everyone pauses their conversation to absorb your embarrassment. The sort of silence that seems to go beyond merely lacking noise, to actively sucking out any possible sound as though to heighten the tension. It seemed to stop time, or at least slow it to a borderline standstill, locking Gumball in a separate universe, consisting of only him, Marley, and the eternal force of potential energy, built up but never used.

For at least a minute and a half, the two of them were like this. Gumball assumed that Marley was going to either leave or try to violate him in some way, and Marley was obviously waiting for...something to happen, occasionally looking over at the pancakes and trying to start conversation, letting little "ums" penetrate the void. Finally, her blue counterpart spoke up. "Uuuuuh..so, can I help you with something?" He couldn't quite keep his voice straight, but at this point that was the least of his worries.

Marley glanced downward and to the side, unable to look her love interest in the eyes. "D-dont you...you know...want to try them?" She giggled, and turned her face back to Gumball. "I put something special in it for you. It's a little something that will...well you know...hehe~"

The plastic weapon's holder resumed pointing the barrel straight into Marley's face. "Uh, yeah, no. I may not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but even I know it's not a good idea to eat things covered in technicolor liquid that both gives off steam and weird valentine's hearts. Plus, I'm pretty sure that syrup is starting to become hard and crusty."

"If you eat it, I can guarantee something else will be hard in a few minutes~"

"...I dont follow, are you talking about my arteries? Because that kinda kills people."

Suddenly, the black cat's smile dropped into a frown, and the expression on her face turned from one of lust to one of irritation in a blink of an eye, her happy persona evaporating in the wind. "Oh come the fuck on!" she shouted, changing her tone completely from just a moment ago. "What is it going to take to get you to love me!?"

"You could start by not breaking into my room in the middle of the night and trying to feed me tainted food. And besides, my heart belongs to Penny, so there's nothing you can do." Gumball put his finger on the trigger, poised to fire more impotent bullets.

"You idiot!" she shouted, louder this time, stamping her foot so hard that she made a hole in the floor, "Penny and I are cut from the same biological cloth! We're practically identical on the genetic level! What features does she have that I dont?"

"Try a personality that's not utterly abhorrent." said Gumball bluntly. "Because this? This is Not Cool...a movie by Shane Dawson."

"What the fuck is a "personality"?" The angered feline's tone was now a mix of indignation and what seemed to Gumball as genuine confusion. "We're alike on the levels that matter! You're just making up attributes!"

"Whaaaaaat? Personality is not a "made up attribute", do you even know what it is? I mean...you DO know what emotions and feelings are, right?"

"I mean, geez, if this is one of those stupid mental things, I can easily alter my mind to have the "personality" you so desire. You should have told me that in the first place!"

Gumball took a hand off the gun and applied it directly to his face in frustration. "That's NOT how personality works. And even IF you somehow managed to gain the same personality as Penny, you still wouldn't be Penny no matter how hard you try!"

Marley clenched her fists, trying her best to restrain herself from attacking the room out of anger. "You're being ridiculous! If I manage to make myself like Penny on both the genetic level AND the "personality" level or whatever that means, and copy her exactly on whatever other made up terms you feel like applying, then for all intents and purposes I am Penny! What makes me any different from her then? I defy you to tell me!"

"Well I mean...you still wouldn't have her soul." This particular comment came from Darwin, chiming in from the safety of his fish bowl, who had been watching the scene unfold before him with great interest.

"A...soul? Again with nonsensical terms!"

Gumball ignored Marley's musings over words she decided weren't real in order to glare at Darwin. "Took you long enough to help!" he grumbled.

"I'm sorry!" said Darwin in a hushed tone. "That weirdo cat lady scares me! And it stands within my self interest to protect myself!" At once, he found himself face to face with the very thing he feared as Marley leaped across the room towards him. Latching her claws on to Darwin's tank, she stared at him face to face, with her head pressed against the bowl, the veins in her golden eyes burning red.

"HOW DO I ACQUIRE A SOUL!?"

Darwin froze in place, barely able to get a sound out. "I...I...well..."

"TELL ME, OR I SWEAR TO HYBRID THAT WILL VIVISECT YOU!"

"P-p-please stop shouting at me!" Terrified, Darwin could barely hold back tears, and although he had no idea what "vivisection" was, he assumed it was bad. "The...uh...the thing is...everyone has a soul. It's k-kinda like, a term for the essence of who y-you are. You cant really make any tangible conclusions on it, but it's somehow still there. S-so there's no need to acquire one."

Marley's eyes narrowed, the anger in them subsiding slightly. "What does a soul look like?"

"I dunno." said Darwin, shrugging his shoulders. "Gumball, do you have any idea?"

"As far as I know, I dont think souls look like anything, really."

Gumball's intruder and stalker detached herself from the fishbowl, walking back over to face him in spite of the gun barrel being pointed in her face. "If you dont know what they look like, how are you supposed to know that they're in your body?"

"Uh...you just...know, I guess? I think you have to ask a priest about this sort of thing, because it's a little late for philosophy. Everyone has one, from the moment they're born, at least as far as I'm aware that's how it works."

"Born?"

"Start living, you know, you pop out of mommy's whatever and start your life. You DO understand that concept, right?"

Marley looked as perplexed as ever, which was something that was happening to her a lot tonight. "...mommy?" she managed to ask, turning her head like a lost puppy. "Is that, like, another term for father? Because I have one of those. Did your father tell you these things when you were first born?"

Gumball and Darwin looked back and forth at each other, not sure what to make of the situation. What started as a home intrusion by a creepy girl with way too much time on her hands was now turning into what felt like a conversation with a robot. Whatever the case, they both had enough of this, silently agreeing that now was the time to force her out.

"Okay, look..." Gumball began, trying his best to be tactful. "I'd love to talk about this more, but we've got to go to bed, and what you're doing is still illegal."

"Laws are a spook." said Darwin. His brother quickly shot him a glare. "...sorry, continue."

"Anyways, to make a long story short," Gumball raised his Nerf machine gun to Marley's face again, "you have about five seconds to get out of my room before I unload my harmless but very irritating arsenal into your head."

Marley let out a loud groan. Although she still desired Gumball, and wanted to learn more about these invisible traits, she could see that the odds were not in her favor this evening. Reluctantly, she shoved herself through the tiny hole in the window, and leaped off of the sill, disappearing into the darkness.

"Well, that was both weird and horrifically disturbing" said Darwin after a few seconds of silence, echoing what his brother was thinking.

"I'll say." Gumball added in agreement. "Do you think she's some kind of like, asylum escapee or something like that?"

Darwin yawned, the absence of stress leaving him ready once again to doze off. "I dunno, but I got the feeling that wherever she's from, asylum or otherwise, that whoever raised her clearly didn't care about her well-being. I know she's foreign and all, but this seems pretty unprecedented."

"Maybe it's like, the name she calls the guy who experimented on her in the asylum or something?" Gumball offered, wrapping himself under the covers of his bed for maximum comfort. "Or maybe things are really messed up in Slovakia. They seem like the kind of people evil enough to experiment on innocent children."

"Dude, you really need to get over your arbitrary racism towards Slovaks and Croats. It's not healthy. Anyways, goodnight buddy..."

"Goodnight pal..."

With that, the two of them drifted off into a deep slumber, the weight of their week of activities catching up to them. Yet even as they dozed off, they couldn't help but wonder a little about this strange girl who showed up out of nowhere. A girl with no regard for personal space, existing relationships, and apparently no understanding of a lot of aspects of life. Mostly though, they just thought about how unsettling she was, and that maybe they should convince their mom to adopt a better security system.


	6. It was ME, DIO!

Chapter 6: You thought these chapter titles had a pattern, but it was ME, DIO!

 **A/N: Side effects of reading Empathomorphosis include drowsiness, dizziness, headache, indigestion, diarrhea, dysentery, cravings for pretzels, an affinity for increasingly awful jokes, boredom, fatigue, and complete breakdown of the urinary system followed by death. Ask your doctor if reading Empathomorphosis is right for you.**

Penny Fitzgerald's arduous quest to discover the true meaning behind "The Bases" went about as well as one can expect in a town as dysfunctional as Elmore.

Which is to say, really badly.

To her dismay, it turned out the average girl at school was just as clueless as the rest of her friends on the subject. Often, they would pretend like they knew what they were talking about, but each girl gave wildly different answers from each other, and assured Penny that their version was the only correct version. And of course, to compound her bad luck, Sarah G. Lato was STILL out of commission, and thus unable to provide a timely answer, due to food poisoning from eating bad steamed hams up in Utica. Penny would later make a mental note to give that oversized frozen dairy treat a piece of her mind for her inconvenient absences.

But that would have to be saved for another time. The shapeshifting fairy's first concern was discovering the truth behind "The Bases", because if those fanfics were true, they were the key to achieving…well…something that could blast that Marley to pieces. She briefly pondered that maybe it functioned like a localized version of a Spirit Bomb, before reflecting on her attempts to get answers that day.

* * *

The first girl she enquired was her close friend Masami. An animate puffy white cloud about the size of the average head, complete with black eyes and a mouth, Masami could act like a spoiled brat at times, but Penny knew that she was actually a pretty nice girl underneath her abrasive shell. It was just hard to crack it open.

"Uh, duuuh!" said Masami when the question was proposed to her, "Everybody worth their salt knows what the bases are!" This haughty, boastful attitude was typical of Masami when she was asked anything, and as Penny learned over the years, the less the puffy cloud knew about a subject, the harder she would try to act like the particular information was totally obvious. And the fairy could tell that Masami was being particularly boastful and condescending.

"Great!" she responded, her confidence quickly decreasing. "Then surely, you could explain them to a poor, uninformed gal such as myself, right?"

Masami tried to puff her chest out in an attempt to look assertive, which is hard when you don't actually have a chest. "Ha! Of course! The first base is to…um…"

By now, Penny could already tell that her friend knew jack shit about what she was talking about, and that whatever answer would be entirely wrong. Still, she entertained her, just to see what she would attempt to pass off as knowledge. After a few moments of her eyes darting around, the cloud girl managed to compose herself. "Where was I? Ah yes! The first base is to kiss him, of course. That's obvious."

"Go on…" said the fairy, waiting for the ball of concentrated water vapor to collapse and burn.

"Second base involves, uh…you have to grab his nipples! As it turns out, a boy's nipples are actually an intrinsic part of the courtship process! By rubbing them, you stimulate the olfactory glands in the gastrointestinal tract of the pituitary gland, culminating in a rush of endorphins from the spinal fluid and making him fall in love with you!" The cloud gave a big, nervous smile in a desperate attempt to mask the fact that she was coming up with this on the fly.

"Mmhmm…" said Penny, her skepticism only increasing, "and the rest of them?"

Masami gulped, having a momentary pause as she tried to haphazardly cobble together more baseless information. "Well…third base is a natural follow up of the previous step, because now you have to get the boy you're dating to rub _your_ nipples! With simultaneous activation, the wifi glands in the male nipples should receive with the-"

"Okay come on now, Masami. You don't even have nipples in the first place."

The cloud appeared indignant. "Uh, I do TOO have nipples! Here, I can prove it!"

As any rational person would, the mango fairy decided to quickly excuse herself before the conversation went to even more uncomfortable places. Even she had her limits.

"Uh, excuse me!" shouted Masami as Penny walked away. "I'm still talking here! This is totally Not Cool!" This in turn was immediately followed by Gumball proclaiming "A movie by Shane Dawson!" from way down the hall, earning him a glare from the floating cloud.

The next girl Penny encountered was Jamie, as they were getting food in the canteen. A pint sized minotaur sort of creature, Jamie had a reputation for being a fearsome bully, as demonstrated by her systematically bashing people over the head with spoons in order to get to the front of the line. She also had a reputation for being very, very stupid, but even so Penny knew not to judge a book by its cover. After all, she just might know something.

Unfortunately, what Penny didn't figure out was that when a book is called "Violent Psychopath with a Single Digit IQ", you probably shouldn't read it. Jamie immediately assumed the deer fairy was talking about literal bases, and thus started to blab out baseball advice that would probably get one a multitude of red cards and a court summons should you actually put them into practice. When Penny attempted to correct her, the miniscule minotaur became violent and tried to stab her with a rusty spoon. Fortunately, the shapeshifter's abilities kicked in, turning her into a dragon and thus allowing her to swat her assailant away with a flick of her tail, but it once again left Penny back at square one.

Sometime after lunch, Penny figured that maybe, with Carmen the cactus's long relationship with Alan, she might know a thing or two about these mystical bases. But just as she turned down the hall, Penny witnessed the cactus in a life or death slapfight against everyone's favorite sleazy kitten, Marley. Apparently, the altercation started because Marley mistook Alan for a regular, nonsentient balloon, but Penny wasn't going to stick around to find out the details. She would have to go to someone else for help.

Fourth on her list of encounters was Carrie Krueger, Darwin's boyfriend and another one of her closest personal friends. If anyone knew anything about rituals, it would be Carrie.

"Yeah, sure I know!" said the emo ghost girl. "I was…actually planning on trying it out with Darwin over here next week, heheh…"

As Darwin blushed heavily, Penny's face lit up with elation at having found someone who knows what they're talking about. "Finally! You have no idea how long I've been searching for answers. Tell me everything you know right away!"

"Well, first," began Carrie, opening up an archaic spell book titled _The Necrotelenomicon_ , "you need to draw a nine-foot circle in the room and put the sigil within it." She held out the book to Penny so she could see a picture of the sigil in question, which to her looked like a bunch of random squiggles. "You don't have to draw it perfectly, but it has to be in blood. Preferably a mixture of yours and your partner's."

"Riiiiight" said Penny, recoiling a bit at the prospect of having to draw all of that using blood. "And uh…the next steps don't involve bodily fluids, do they?"

"Well they don't involve blood if that's what your asking."

"Fair enough, continue."

"Right then." Carrie flipped the book a few pages. "The next step seems to involve going through some ritual codified by Benedictine monks. It's written in Middle French, but from what I can gather it involves a bunch of black candles, a burnt offering of goat cheese and printed tweets from a politician, and the sacrifice of an unholy text. Which reminds me: Darwin, did you get that book out from the library yet?"

The goldfish reached into his backpack and pulled out a copy of _The Fountainhead_. "Yeah, I got it…" he said, with a clear twinge of nervousness in his voice, "but I feel kinda dirty holding it."

"If you hold it for me, I promise to possess your body after school today!" Carrie followed this with a sly wink towards Darwin, who turned red with embarrassment just thinking about it. He immediately nodded in affirmation, allowing Carrie to continue.

"Now…where was I?" Carrie flipped the book around a couple of pages. "Ah yes! The third step in this ritual requires…" The ghost girl suddenly stopped reading aloud, pulling the book closely to confirm she was reading it correctly.

"Uh, is everything okay?" asked Penny, who was now worried that she'd gotten her hopes up.

Carrie closed the book to break the bad news to her friend. "Yeah, uh, here's the thing. Turns out, this particular ritual of "rounding the bases", it only applies to spirits. Or at least, a relationship where one or both parties are spirits. So unless you and Gumball have mastered the powers of astral projection, this isn't going to work. You might have a demon come and laugh at you though."

The fairy sighed, at this point quite used to disappointment. "In that case, what are we supposed to do instead?"

"Well, in your case," explained the ghost, "you'd be best off trying the tried and true mortal version of rounding the bases."

"…and let me guess, you have no idea what they are."

"Of course not!" Carrie gestured at herself. "Do I look mortal to you? Darwin might know, given that he's a mortal fish and all that."

Darwin cleared his throat and pulled out a large map of a baseball field. "If there's one thing I've learned from watching TV, you'll want to bend your knees when you're at home plate. When the ball comes to you-"

Before Darwin could impart any more "advice", the golden deer groaned loudly and stomped off, the weight of so many crappy answers taking a toll on her normally sweet demeanor. Darwin, however, didn't take kindly to being walked out on while he was in the middle of giving what he thought was brilliant wisdom. "Hey! You cant just leave while I'm trying to help you! This could save your life in the next game!"

"Forget it Darwin, those weren't the kind of bases she was talking about."

The goldfish scratched his head. "What other kinds of bases are there?"

Carrie merely giggled. "Oh Darwin, you're so innocent it hurts sometimes."

The last girl Penny encountered before she gave up for the day was Tina Rex. A giant tyrannosaur, Tina was by far the most feared student in school, and her deep booming voice and tendency to get angry didn't help things. However, Penny knew Tina well enough to know that the dinosaur was actually a really sweet girl who genuinely cared for her fellow students. It's just that being a giant lizard with sharp teeth, everyone assumed by default that she was a brute out to murder them.

"Gee, relationship advice? I'm not sure if I'm good at that." the dinosaur admitted. "But I'd be happy to help you in any way I can. After all, I still owe you for that time you shared your sandwich with me when I forgot my lunch."

Penny gave the predatory reptile a brief rundown of the situation. At least, as brief as one can be when your situation involves your boyfriend being harassed by a psychotic teenage girl with an indeterminable body composition and ungodly strength. Once again, the feeling that this whole story was kinda ridiculous began to dawn on the girl, but Tina kept interest throughout with a nonjudgmental look on her face. After all, she figured that there was no upper limit for strangeness where Gumball was concerned.

"…so basically," the fairy concluded, "that's why I need to figure out what these bases are."

Tina Rex paused for a moment to take this all in. While she wanted to give the best answer to the mystery of "the bases" as she could, she noticed something odd in the way Penny was behaving. Maybe it was her tone of voice, maybe it was the frustrated look in her eyes or the bags hanging under it, or maybe it was just the way she seemed to be on the edge of a panic attack. One thing was certain: as bright as Penny was, Tina suspected that she wasn't thinking on entirely logical lines.

"I think I understand what you're talking about" said Tina, after a moment of deliberation. "But uh, are you sure you really know what you're looking for?"

"I've been wandering around this school for nearly an hour today trying to figure out what these bases are, so yes, I think I know exactly what I'm looking for."

"Are you sure about that?" Tina was trying her best to sound earnest and not condescending, but it seemed to do little to keep Penny from looking frustrated. "I mean, it seems to me like you're looking for a complicated solution to something that could easily solved with a heartfelt conversation."

"Are you…actually suggesting…that I engage that beast in CONVERSATION!?" In an instant, Penny's frustration converted to 200 gigawatts of anger, turning her into a reddish gorgon who's snake coils hissed venomously at Tina.

"Uh…yes?"

The medusa-esque creature Penny had morphed into let out an extremely over the top groan. Smacking her tail into the ground a couple of times to emphasize her displeasure, the gorgon slithered off down the hallway, muttering to herself about dinosaurs having pea-brains.

* * *

And that was the extent of Penny's epic quest. A quest that now left her with an overwhelming urge to bash her head against her locker out of sheer rage. However, all that built up anger, anxiety, and general feelings of failure evaporated into the ether the moment a certain, azure colored feline walked up next to her.

"Hi Pe-" was all Gumball was able to get out before he found himself on the receiving end of a crushing bear hug, squeezing all the air, and by proxy the words, out of him. On the one hand, this all-encompassing embrace of passion by the girl of his dreams was like experiencing some kind of nirvana, the warmth and affection flowing into him like a stream of rainbows, making his heart nearly beat out of his chest with excitement. On the other hand, the influx of love was not a replacement for Gumball's crippling lack of oxygen, and thus the lovestruck part of his brain began a fight to the death with his survival instinct.

"Gummy!" cooed the fairy, rather oblivious to the slow suffocation of her boyfriend. "Thank god it's you! I have had literally the worst day and it-"

"A-air…" the feline croaked, his compulsion to breath assuming direct control of his mind. Penny loosened her arms, still holding Gumball in a hug but allowing him a moderate amount of chest room.

"Heh…sorry about that" she said coyly. "I've just had a particularly bad afternoon and it was a relief seeing a friendly face." She let go of the bluish cat, having satisfied her desire for physical contact.

Gumball gave a warm smile and shrugged. "It's understandable. At least you didn't have a creepy stalker break into your bedroom, attempt to feed you pancakes, and then proceed to have a worse understanding of feelings than Bobert. Which reminds me, I need to convince mom to turn on the fireplace at night."

Penny had largely tuned everything out after the revelation that Marley had once again tried to harass Gumball. It took all her effort not to revert to gorgon form or something even more horrifying. "She…did… _WHAT_!?"

"Yeah, it was pretty weird." said Gumball, not sharing his girlfriend's outrage. "Said she wanted to make something or other hard, which I presume was my arteries."

The golden fairy's body was quickly turning a deep shade of red in her effort to repress her spontaneous shapeshifting. "If that little sleaze-ball tries to get into your pants one more time, I am going to _tear off her eye sockets and use them as jump rope_!"

"Get in my…pants? If she wanted to borrow my clothes, she could have just asked."

Penny's coloration started to return to normal, as the exasperation at Gumball's perceived naivety outweighed her rage. "Gumball, that's a figure of speech, it means she's trying to have sex with you."

To her surprise, Penny found that her clarification was met with an over the top, stuck up parody of a British gentleman laughing. "Don't be ridiculous, my dear Penny! Everybody knows that girls don't enjoy sex!"

Whatever anger had been left inside Penny was now entirely replaced with sheer befuddlement. Though she had a dozen ideas of how to respond to such a grossly inaccurate statement, the only thing that came out of her mouth was "Uh…what?"

"Yup, that's one of the secrets of women! A wizard told me!" The azure feline put his hands on his hips in an attempt to pose triumphantly.

"Mmmhmm, right…" said Penny, her expression turning increasingly quizzical. "Tell me Gumball, did you meet this wizard online?"

"Yup! He was part of some weird secret society called INCEL, which I think is some acronym for something cool."

"Ahuh. By any chance, were these "wizards" all over the age of 30?"

"Now that you mention it, yes, but I don't see what-"

"And did the requirements for becoming a "wizard" include spending all your time in your basement eating doritos and drinking mountain dew?" The fairy began to look quite smug as she backed Gumball into a metaphorical corner.

"I can…uh...well…I believe there were doritos involved, yes. And it was kinda weird when they told me I couldn't be a wizard because I had friends." The cat scratched behind his ears, still not sure where his girlfriend was going with this.

"Gumball, I don't know how to tell you this, but those aren't real wizards. They're just people who base their entire worldviews off of their inability to overcome their personality flaws."

Gumball's mouth dropped open into a look of horror, as though his entire worldview was falling to pieces beneath the monstrosity known as common sense. "You mean everything they told me was a _lie_? Do you really think someone would be as heinous as to lie about women and sex on the internet?"

"Oh Gummy," the deer fairy chuckled, patting his head like a pet kitten. "You're adorable sometimes. If I were in a better mood, I'd be happy to give you a demonstration of how wrong they are…" Penny's face lit up several shades of scarlet when she realized she actually said that out loud. "But aaah, we've got bigger issues at the moment."

"While we're on that subject," said Gumball, remembering something important, "there was something weird Marley said last night. Well, okay, everything she said was weird, but one thing in particular that I caught. Something about how you two are "genetically identical" and "cut from the same biological cloth" or whatever?"

Penny narrowed her eyes. "Are you implying she's like, an evil twin or something? That's probably the stupidest cliché in the book. Even if we were related somehow, that still doesn't serve to explain much about her behavior. Though I suppose if this is one of those long standing family feud kind of things that extends back generations, it might make sense, but otherwise I dont know. And it's not like I can just trace her origins on my own."

Gumball rested his back against the lockers next to Penny. "Besides, there's no way you could be Slovak and/or Croatian like she is. Because again, you're not evil."

"You know Gumball, I have to ask. What is it with you and your recent arbitrary hatred of Croatia and Slovakia?"

The world came to a stop as Gumball gave the speech his entire life had lead up to. With one swift motion, he put on a tie, grabbed a soapbox, stood upon it with a microphone, and set the loudspeakers to blare the Serbian national anthem. At once, he launched into an epic political rant, calling out the war crimes of the heinous Croatian fascists and Slovak theocrats. He told of the valiant struggles of nationalist forces against their occupation by the enemy, the brutal tactics of the Ustase, the triumphant execution of Tiso, and followed it up with a finisher emphasizing the strength and beauty of the Serbian land. It was a thing of true beauty, and the moment he was finished, every student in the school converted to eastern Orthodoxy and went off to fight the Turkish menace.

No, not really

What really happened was that Gumball only got as far as opening his mouth before he was cut off by the sudden appearance of a certain walking goldfish.

"Before my brother provides you with mountains of bullshit," began Darwin, "I'd like to set the record straight. The only reason Gumball "hates" Croatians and Slovaks is because he took a DNA test and found out that he was 5% Serbian and 3% Czech, and ever since then he's been pretending like that makes him some kind of oppressed minority to get sympathy points on Ramblr."

Gumball didn't take kindly to having his chances at a rousing political speech go utterly down the tubes, and proceeded to get into a one-sided shouting match with Darwin. As Gumball yelled nationalistic slogans and Darwin calmly proclaimed that nations were "a spook", Penny's thoughts drifted off. True, her boyfriend's use of it might have been frivolous, but a DNA test? That gave her an idea. All she needed was a bit of Marley's fur and somebody willing to compile genetic data for free on command.

And she knew just the emotionally challenged robot who was up to the task…


	7. Freudian Excuses

Chapter 7: Freudian Excuses

 **A/N: It took me a solid three minutes to think up of this author's note. That's by far the longest amount of time I've spent thinking about them. So uh, you're welcome.**

In stories such as this, it is often easy for one to imagine that the events at hand are only affecting a few people. Everyone outside of the core cast of characters goes on with their daily lives, no matter what horrors the protagonist might be facing.

This, however, was not the case here. While Marley's primary targets were Gumball and Penny, her antics and behavior had managed to freak nearly everyone out. Miss Simian, for instance, could barely teach her class, much less keep up her grumpy demeanor for much of the day. Not after that hellbeast responded to failing a pop quiz by grinding her nails on the chalkboard until everyone's ears started bleeding. Meanwhile, Teri's efforts at disinfecting Marley were met with a cascade of corrosive sludge from the ferocious feline, seemingly produced spontaneously from her own body. Tobias found that the cat had decided to take his entire locker as "lunch", leaving a hole in the wall and little scraps of metal and paper. Even Jamie, probably the fiercest student in the entire school, ended up pelted with several broken spoons and toxic pieces of locker shrapnel due to having the misfortune of crossing Marley's path. It was safe to say that with the exception of Gumball, everybody in existence seemed to be on her "kill list".

So naturally, when Banana Joe saw Marley being escorted into detention with him, his immediate reaction was to break out into a cold sweat and silently pray for the universe to grant him mercy.

"Dude!" whispered Tobias, who just so happened to be sitting right next to Banana Joe in detention. "That's the crazy chick who ate my locker! What do you think she's in for?"

"Ah, Marley!" announced Miss Simian, who like always was all too happy to be punishing her own students. "Pleasure to see you in detention! I hope next time you'll think twice before threatening to…what was it you said?"

"Rip your spinal column out through your buttocks and then whip you to death with it." Marley answered, entirely deadpan.

"Right! Anyways, next time you'll think twice before threatening to "rip out my spinal column through my buttocks and whip me to death with it" because you got a math question wrong. Take your seat! Besides, that's not even physically possible."

Marley smirked. "Funny, that's what the last guy said."

The anthropomorphic banana couldn't believe his luck. Of all the days to arrive twenty seconds late to class and catch the wrath of their ancient baboon teacher, it had to be the day Marley got sent in there with him.

As the black cat took a seat over on the far corner of the room, giving Miss Simian the evil eye, Tobias leaned over to his friend again. "I'm telling you," he whispered, "we shouldn't even be in here! Our offenses were minimal!"

Banana Joe's terror briefly dissipated to allow him to give a skeptical look at the rainbowish cloud person. "Uh, correction, _my_ offenses were minimal. You're only in here because of your own stupidity."

"Am not!" Tobias crossed his arms defiantly. "My plan was perfect! It was only through sheer bad luck that it didn't work out.""

Joe said nothing, instead blowing a bizarre flugelhorn that made the sound of a dying whale. At once, Darwin, who wasn't even supposed to be here in the first place, came in through the window. Unfolding a large sign that read "FLASHBACK GAG", he proceeded to wave it in front of everyone and sprinkle confetti.

As if by a flash of convenient magic, it was now three hours ago. Miss Simian, in her usual fashion of tormenting her class, had given them a pop quiz. Everyone was floundering their way through it, even the brightest students like Carmen and Penny, because it was on material that they barely covered from last week. Not that the millenia-old primate cared, if anything watching her students squirm and silently panic was the highlight of her day.

Out of all of them, the most panicked student was easily Tobias. He was never much for academics or studying, so quizzes were hard enough as it was, but this time around he had no idea what he was even doing. Desperate to find a way to discretely cheat, the rainbow fuzzball suddenly remembered a secret art, passed down through British vampiric bloodlines, that would aid him in his time of need. Gathering his courage, Tobias stood atop his desk, breathed in deep, and spoke the sacred words that would allow him to freeze time and look at someone else's answers without anyone noticing.

"ZA WARUDO!"

Not only did it not work, all it served to do was get everyone to stare at him and earn Tobias three hours of detention; two for disrupting the class during a silent test, and one for making unauthorized JoJo references. It also goes without saying that he utterly bombed the quiz, but so did nearly everyone else, so one wonders why he thought copying off someone else would actually help him.

To the confusion of the entire class, most of all that version of Darwin, the present/future Darwin burst back into the room. Waving around a giant sign that read "FLASHBACK GAG END", he sprinkled more confetti around and made silly little sound effects to emulate a scene transition. And just as suddenly as before, the scene suddenly shifted back to the present, with Tobias, Marley, and Banana Joe, watched over by an absolutely baffled Miss Simian.

"I hope I've proven my point." said Joe triumphantly, putting his horn away. "Things that work in anime do not work in real life."

Tobias glared at his friend. "Isn't this the same town that spontaneously throws people into a void of nothingness for being too boring? With standards like that, how was I supposed to-"

"QUIET! ALL OF YOU!" screeched Miss Simian. "And as for YOU Darwin, you're also going to be serving three hours detention, so you better sit down!"

Darwin looked mightily ashamed and disappointed. "Aww, what did I do wrong?"

"Well, in addition to unauthorized entrance to detention, it's also strictly against the rules to alter the time stream for the purpose of a gag!" Miss Simian looked quite smug as she was laying down the punishment. "ESPECIALLY with a clumsy attempt like yours!"

Darwin crossed his arms and stood firm. "You cant put me in detention! I'll have you know I'm a sovereign individual, and I don't accept your illegitimate authority. Your spooks only have power over me if I let them."

The goldfish's introductory anarchism had no effect on his teacher, who looked like she was right about ready to maul every student in the room. "I'll have you know that my "spooks" are backed up by a lot of very tangible force! And I'll show you just how tangible it is if you- MARLEY WHAT ARE YOU DOING OUT OF YOU SEAT!?"

The eponymous black cat paused halfway across the room to acknowledge Miss Simian's vocal fury, although she barely changed her expression. "I'm leaving" she said bluntly. "This place irritates me, and it's wasting valuable time I could be spending trying to get to Gumball. Toodles!"

Marley added that last bit with a wink and an upbeat tic in her voice, which only served to make Miss Simian even more furious for a moment, before suddenly calming down and becoming smug again. "Ha! Good luck with that! The doors and windows are locked! I think I'll pencil you down for afterschool detention for the whole-"

The baboon found herself cut off as the delinquent student she was addressing suddenly grabbed the entire teacher's desk, ripping out from the floor like it was made of balsa wood. Miss Simian was so shocked that she could barely even offer a word of protest before the inky black feline proceeded to use the desk as a battering ram against the door, shattering both into pieces as well as a good chunk of the wall. As everyone watched in stunned silence, Marley nonchalantly walked out the resulting hole, grumbling to herself about "flaying that meatbag's nose hair".

"Well, that was something!" announced Miss Simian, a twisted, barely maintained smile on her face. "If anyone needs me, I'll be in my car with a bottle of whisky wondering where my life went so wrong. You can all go home now." And with that, she unlocked the window and rolled out of it, the students able to hear her laughing maniacally in the distance as she rolled her way out of their line of sight and into the busy highway.

* * *

As Banana Joe and Tobias cautiously made their way out of the school, they were able to catch sight of the one responsible for their freedom. Marley, who still remained a dangerous enigma to everyone, seemed to be in quite the hurry, paying no regard to other civilians or traffic signs. Her erratic behavior was the kind of thing most people would want to get as far away from as reasonably possible, for their safety and sanity.

Banana Joe, however, was not most people.

True, that monstrous excuse of a teenage girl scared him, just like most everyone else who was unfortunate enough to interact with her. But at the same time, his sense of curiosity was piqued as he saw her going down the street, and recalled that nobody had any idea where she lived, or what her family was like, if she even had one. As the cat jaywalked yet again, resulting in a seven car pileup and quite a few injuries, Joe came to realize that this was the opportunity to learn these secrets, and thus come one step closer to understanding why this crazy lady was the way she was. Something inside him felt that he owed this information not just to himself, but all the other students of Elmore Junior High for having to deal with this bullshit for over a week.

Well, okay, the primary reason he felt the need to follow her was because Tobias bet him twenty dollars that Marley lived in the sewers. And he'd be damned if he passed on an opportunity to win some cash and screw over that obnoxious fluff puff.

"You sure about this?" said Tobias, once he got wind of Joe's plan. "I mean, I'm not one to lecture people on whether something's a bad idea or not, but trailing Marley back to her…whatever she lives in sounds pretty high up on the bad idea list."

Banana Joe shrugged, trying his best to act cool and mask his fear. "Cant be any worse than just letting her roam freely, I say. Besides, I'm a banana! If that gremlin tries to chase after me, I'll just take off my peel and drop it in front of her! It's foolproof!"

"If you say so." the rainbowish puff ball replied, not terribly convinced. "I'm going to go practice with my invisible laser shotgun."

"You mean the same gun that's part of your imaginary arsenal that only ever worked because Gumball and Darwin were being gullible idiots that one time?

"Well sure, it might be imaginary NOW, but if I focus hard enough, it'll become real! Like a tulpa, except a lot less creepy."

The walking fruit decided not to comment on that last bit, and after bidding his friend farewell briskly jogged down the direction Marley was headed so as not to lose her. Fortunately, it appeared the feline was still busy with the whole traffic accident and engaged in quite the shouting match with some very angry motorists. Joe managed to reach the intersection just in time to witness Marley decide that she was done with negotiations. Grabbing a car and lifting it high into the air, she swung the locomotive around in a big circle, knocking both people and cars a good thirty feet back with a loud _clunk_. With a final proclamation of "RULES OF NATURE, BITCHES!", she utterly mashed the car she was holding into the ground, leaving nothing but twisted metal and a smoldering crater in the middle of the road.

Although the metamorphing cat spawned a pair of wings again and flew off into the distance, this did not hinder Joe too much in the task of following her. Part of it was due to the relatively clear line of sight he had of where she was going, part of it was because she was clearly bee-lining to her destination. Mostly though, she was also leaving a trail of black droplets every time she flapped her wings. So despite Banana Joe not being particularly fast due to his small stature, he had confidence he'd be able to track Marley to her house. And then, those twenty dollars would be all his…

* * *

It was rather fortuitous that Joe had mastered the art of spontaneous jump cuts, otherwise it would have taken him forever to get to his destination. Or worse, he might have had to take the public bus. Regardless, he had arrived at his destination, as it seemed the flying cat of doom had taken refuge in the abandoned fireworks factory. Legend held that it was condemned due to everyone expressing extreme irritation over whether or not they would "get to it", but the fruit didn't seem to have a problem finding it. It was pretty large, for one thing, and its dilapidated state made it rather conspicuous. He briefly pondered why nobody bothered to remove this extremely obvious eyesore as he crossed the threshold, journeying into the dark recesses of this industrial site.

For an abandoned factory, it was in surprisingly okay condition on the inside. Sure, Joe noticed a fair amount of destroyed machinery, broken glass, and a pile of…something on the floor that he really hoped wasn't a corpse. But at the same time, most of the destruction was clumped together and easy to avoid, an ordered chaos if you will. Much like if someone had cleared a path through the junk multiple times.

Naturally, the elevator was broken, and even if it wasn't there was no way Joe was actually going to risk using it. He'd seen to many horror movies involving elevators to use one all by himself. Stairs weren't exactly his forte either, but as it happened, he only had to ascend up two floors before he began to hear a voice.

Or, more accurately, voices, plural. As Banana Joe approached closer to the source, he could make out two people talking. One seemed to not be saying much, though not for lack of trying. This high pitched, wavering voice with a touch of vibrato to it was almost unmistakably Marley. From what he could make out, and from how her voice broke frequently, it almost sounded as though Marley was flat out terrified of whoever she was talking to. A moment later, Joe would begin to understand why.

The other voice was something that the banana had never heard before, and after this encounter certainly never wanted to hear again. It's not that it was particularly scary in the way it sounded. In fact, with the exception of the little bits of vibrato and stuttering, one could almost say it sounded like a normal, adult male voice. But no matter how hard he tried, Joe couldn't shake the overwhelming sensation that something was inherently _wrong_ with it. Although he wasn't close enough to hear what was being said clearly, he could tell that whatever this other figure was saying, it was speaking with as much bile as possible. The sheer venom dripping from every line of dialogue sent a cold chill through the fruit, and were twenty dollars not on the line he would have immediately gotten the heck out of Dodge.

But alas, there's always an amount of money that can make fools of us all, and in the case of Joe, his buying price was shockingly low considering the danger of his task. Pulling out his cell phone, he carefully tip-toed across the hallway. It seemed that both entities were too busy in a one-sided argument to really notice anyone approaching, but he didn't want to take chances. As he approached their location, he could make out the voices a little more clearly, catching bits and pieces of whatever their conversation was.

"…trying my best! Isn't that enough?" said a voice that clearly came from Marley, not even trying to hide the obvious tremble.

"The only thing impressive about anything you've done so far is that you haven't died yet." There was the as of yet unidentified speaker, his voice still filled with utter contempt. "But survival means little if you are otherwise entirely worthless. Which you've been continuously proving since the moment you started breathing."

"I'm n-not worthless!" screeched Marley, her stammer even more evident. "You have no idea how hard this is! He rejected the pancakes and his girlfriend…well, you know exactly what she is! And you still haven't told me why I have to win this boy over in the first place!"

The other presence could almost be heard softly chuckling. "Oh, I'm sorry, but it would seem you have forgotten our deal. When you actually complete this simple task, then and only then will you actually be worthy of any care and consideration, as well as details on the importance of your assignment. As of right now, the fact that you continue to remind me of your existence irritates me to no end."

"I just…I don't know what to do…" Banana Joe could have sworn that the cat was starting to cry.

Her superior, or whoever it was, only seemed to become harsher and more condescending in tone, if that was even possible. "Oh wowie, how surprising. My mentally deficient spawn is confused. While the first step to eliminating a problem is admitting you have one, I still sincerely hope you don't expect me to give you a hug or a pat on the back for recognizing the blatantly obvious."

At last, the diminutive banana had reached a point where he could see his target. Peaking around a corner, he caught a glimpse of a large, rather barren room, scattered with crates of unknown substances. Marley, in a far cry from her normal assertive behavior, was prostrating herself before something Joe could not identify, her head purposefully facing the ground and avoiding looking up at all costs.

As for what Marley was kneeling before, the banana could not see from his vantage point, at least nor properly. He could make out a bluish glow coming from the direction Marley was facing, but otherwise could see nothing of this figure. And he wasn't about to get closer to find out. Hell, he already felt too close as it was, but he needed a decent picture if only to win that bet with Tobias. Funny enough, he realized he had almost completely forgotten about it when he started following the conversation, and as the entity continued to berate Marley for what Joe could only assume was the crime of existing, he positioned his cell phone and snapped a couple of decisive pictures.

 _Perfect_ , he said to himself. _Now I can leave this horror-show._ All in all, Joe felt pretty proud of himself. Not only was he about to show up Tobias, but he also now had an interesting story to or two to tell the rest of the class. If he played his cards right, he might earn their attention for a full two hours! And bonus, as everyone knows, chicks dig guys who snag secret photographs of other girls. It shows machismo. At least, that's what Tobias claimed.

Just as he was going to turn around, however, he heard Marley briefly begin to assert herself and assure the figure she was talking to that she was, in fact, "worthy of love". Unfortunately, the black cat made the horrible mistake of accidentally looking at the source of the bluish glow…

Marley immediately recoiled and looked back at the ground, as if aware of the full magnitude of her error, but it was too late. The feline began to hold her head tightly, as though she was having a nasty headache. But this was clearly no ordinary headache, as Marley's moans of pain were far more pathetic than a simple throbbing of the head would suggest. And her anguish induced groans were only getting louder every second.

"And speaking of not listening to basic instructions," said the unseen figure, the tranquility of his tone barely masking his apparent fury, "It seems you've yet again grown arrogant enough to think yourself worthy of looking upon me. Understand that what I'm about to do to you is out of love."

"N-no, please!" If Marley wasn't terrified before, she certainly sounded so now. "I-I'm sorry daddy! It was an accident! Please-"

The cat's pleas for mercy were cut off by a sickening squish noise. And immediately after, screaming.

Actually, screaming doesn't quite do justice for what Banana Joe heard. The vocalizations Marley made, as her gooey body began to stretch like taffy and her head slowly squished itself into an amorphous blob, could only be described as the sound of agony. Pure, desperate wails of agony as the cat's mind and body were mutilated, her arms bending impossibly yet remaining unbroken, a hole torn through her skull that intersected with itself on a 4th dimensional level, and…some scenes Joe really, REALLY didn't want to remember.

And this thing was inflicting this level of torment as casually as one might eat fruit snacks.

The influx of hellish cries and twisted gurglings snapped Joe out of his curiousity. Fight-or-flight kicking in, he bolted down the hall at speeds he didn't think were possible. Forget winning that stupid bet, all that mattered now was getting as far away from this horror show as possible. The next few moments seemed like a blur to him as he ran for his life, somehow instinctively avoiding walls, obstacles, and the ever present hazard of tripping even though he was barely looking where he was going. Other than his heartbeat (and yes, he did have one), the only thing Joe could hear was the continued sound of Marley's suffering, which only served to make him sprint ever faster.

When he came to his senses, Banana Joe realized he had ran at least a block away from the abandoned fireworks factory. Every fiber of his muscles ached from overexertion, and he was about ready to collapse and pass out, but at least he got away from that screaming. That horrible, horrible screaming. And as Joe fell onto the soft grass in front of a store that specialized in selling chicken in a biscuit, there was only one thing on his mind.

When he found Tobias, he was going to make that old so-and-so cough up at least twenty extra dollars.


	8. Genetics! How DOES it work?

Chapter 8: Genetics! How DOES it work?

 **A/N: Kokorozek Studios would like to apologize for the tardiness of this chapter. I'll spare you the details of what happened on site, but to make a long story short, that's the last time we're letting anybody try to scan their butt on the photocopier. It's just asking for trouble. We now return to your regularly scheduled program.**

 _"Greetings, specimen Penny. I have completed the genetic analysis of both yourself and the being known as "Marley". The results are, in a subjective sense, quite abnormal."_

Oh boy…

When Penny Fitzgerald came to Bobert a couple days ago, her hope was that the diminutive yet extremely useful robot would help her with this whole "DNA test" thing without a hitch. But of course, Elmore being Elmore, things rarely proved to be so simple. For one, Bobert actually requested something in exchange: alone time with a vacuum cleaner. It was a fairly easy request to grant, but whatever it is the robot did to the household appliance in that closet, she never wanted to know.

Secondly, the act of getting DNA from Marley turned out to be a lot grosser than anticipated. Apparently, the only way to get an accurate sample was to extract the DNA from "body fluid", in this case saliva. Now, the cat creature generated multiple drool trails from chasing Penny's boyfriend, so finding saliva wasn't too hard. But again, it managed to be disgusting as all get up. As she swabbed the drool with a q-tip, she silently prayed to Melek Taus that she wouldn't be infected with some kind of alien pathogen or whatever it is Marley was carrying.

All said and done, while her task wasn't necessarily difficult, it was sure uncomfortable to do. Between the saliva and the vacuum, Penny figured that these results better be pretty damn important, because she was not going to accept that she nearly contracted Teri's hypochondria just to have this stupid test turn up a dead end.

So when she heard the results of the test were "abnormal", she breathed an internal sigh of relief. No matter what it was, at least she would feel validated in potentially contracting the bubonic plague from that cat's body fluids. As much as abnormalities in this town tended to cause massive devastation, if worse comes to worse at least she could die knowing she didn't help a robot get freaky with an inanimate object for nothing.

As luck would have it, the two were able to meet up right in the middle of the day. Miss Simian's freak out two days prior resulted in her taking a leave of absence, and due to the poor organization of the school, this meant that Penny and her class did not have a teacher. Which meant by some freak accident of mismanagement, they didn't have a functioning class, at all. Not even a substitute teacher. Thus, all the kids in her class had essentially been spending all of yesterday and today wandering aimlessly and chatting like nothing was going on. Which, granted, they did anyways, but this time they actually had an excuse.

But despite the lack of urgency, Penny couldn't help but become impatient waiting for the results. And as she and Bobert sat by the computers in the library, admist a small group of her fellow students playing some online game, she mentally prepared herself for whatever shocking revelations might come out of the miniscule machine.

"Alright, lay it on me."

The robot, in its usual fashion, proceeded to grab a chair and lay it on Penny's head. " _Request completed"_

The golden deer mentally slapped herself for forgetting Bobert's habit of taking everything literally, and calmly set the chair to the side. "I meant the results of the test. We're really going to have to work on figures of speech with you."

 _"Of course, the test results. Please stand by while I retrieve the data. In the meantime, would you like to hear a knock knock joke?"_ Bobert's LED face displayed a crude image of a door, presumably to set up whatever joke he had in mind. However, a quick glare from Penny prompted him to get rid of the display and cancel the joke.

"Just hurry up and give me those stupid results!" growled Penny, who at this point had half of mind to delete system 32 on this rust bucket.

The artificial intelligence made a few confused bleeps. " _These results are not sentient, so by definition they cannot be stupid_." Bobert's chirping came to a stop as he noticed the golden fairy standing before him begin to turn red. " _However, for the sake of self-preservation, I shall divulge the information at once. Unfortunately, this "Marley" being's DNA was not able to provide sufficient intel, so I fear these results may not be as accurate as you like."_

Penny began to glow red, something she was doing a lot of these days, which again prompted Bobert to cut to the chase. " _Strictly speaking,_ " the automaton chirped, " _it appears that not only does Marley not bear relation to you, but her genetic lineage is a singular point. There is simply no ancestry to trace._ "

The exasperated fairy began to calm down. Even though technically speaking, this was bad news, at least she was actually getting news. Her system of logic was kinda bamboozled over the last few days. "And…what does that mean?"

 _"Quite simply, it means that this specimen has either spontaneously come into being, which is highly unlikely, or she originates from somewhere entirely offworld, either extraterrestrial or extradimensional, most likely the former."_

"Great," Penny sighed, "so she's an alien of some kind?"

 _"The data appears to draw this conclusion, yes."_

To Penny, this reveal was somewhat anti-climactic. But without the family connection, at least she could feel free to write Marley off as a total nutjob without any rhyme or reason into what she was doing.

It was just as well that the results turned up nothing, as Penny had enough to focus on without tracing back the genetics of some goopy rape-cat. Sarah G. Lato had finally recovered from the bad steamed hams (which were apparently a result of not being exposed to the aurora borealis) and was roaming somewhere around the school. Penny was unable to talk to her in class, what with their not really being class and all, and thus needed to set aside some time to find her and speak with her. After all, she still had to chew that frozen dairy treat out for abandoning her in her time of need, as well as finally getting information on those bases.

The thought of the all important bases suddenly brought her thoughts back to Gumball again. She'd been thinking about him a lot recently with all that had been going on, and though granted, it's typical to think about one's significant other for extended periods of time, this kind of thinking was different from what she was used to. Not only had Marley made her decidedly more possessive, for lack of a better term, but her thoughts about Gumball began to drift into a realm that was decidedly less innocent, complete with the sudden desire to gaze at that one naked picture of him that she had saved. It seemed curious to her, how the presence of this stalkerish alien cat thingy had expanded her capacity to love Gumball. Perhaps this had something to do with the legendary bases?

Her train of thought was interrupted by Bobert suddenly vocalizing. _"It would be prudent for this one to note, however, that there is an additional anomaly in the data, specifically in the genetic heritage of one Penny Fitzgerald."_

That certainly got the fairy's attention. "What kind of anomaly are we talking about?" she asked, her interest perked and thoughts of her boyfriend cleared.

The robot made a few blips of indeterminate purpose. _"The anomaly in the data concerns your family tree, specifically the fairy lineage. Combing through all possible historical archives, it appears that this branch of your heritage has well kept records, far better than most. At least, while it lasts."_

Penny raised an eyebrow. "While it lasts?"

Bobert's LED began to display various historical documents in rapid succession, of which Penny couldn't differentiate. _"To be specific, the records are kept in great detail until the 1330's, converging in what is now known as Krakow. Prior to this date and location, there is nothing."_

"Are you sure there's not like, an error in your calculations?"

 _"Impossible."_ the robot immediately shot back, as though it took offense to the mere suggestion that it could be wrong. _"My programming is the result of hundreds of years of the brightest human minds working together with the express purpose of building the perfect analytical machine. Thus, the chances of such an egregious error are astronomically low."_

Penny sighed as it began to dawn upon her that she was about to descend a rabbit hole of weirdness. "Okay…fine, but what does that mean? Don't tell me it means that I'm ALSO from space."

 _"Affirmative"_ Bobert chirped, and despite his consistent monotone voice it seemed almost cheerful. _"The component of your genetics that gives you your shape shifting abilities has no terrestrial origin. It would appear, in fact, that it is closer related to specimen Marley than it is to more than half of the human population."_

The golden deer's annoyance was beginning to rise. "Are you telling me that Marley and I ARE actually related, even after you said we weren't?"

 _"By all technicalities, yes, but not in any meaningful manner. Centuries of interbreeding with various other human phenotypes has rendered this connection thin, only matching up on the superficial level. In other words, you are as related to Marley as you are to a random individual in Argentina."_ The robot's LED quickly flashed an image of a watch. _"Unfortunately, this concludes our session. I have other obligations for today."_

"And what might those be?" said Penny, in a more sarcastic tone than she meant. She was still processing this information, so focusing on not sounding like a jerk fell slightly at the wayside. It was fortunate that Bobert was not one to take offense.

 _"If it suits you to know, I have been assigned by Darwin to come to his aid around 2 pm. Specifically, I am to help him in, as he put it, "pull a prank on the capitalist pigdogs that keep humanity in chains." Thus, I must engage in some deep web shenanigans in this library, which will take up most of my processing power for the time being."_

Penny was about to speak up before she realized it was most likely in her best interest not to inquire further. She had heard enough about Darwin's anarchist antics from Gumball, who would occasionally regale her with tales of what crimes the goldfish had managed to get away with. It boggled her mind that such a sweet and mild mannered person would be so easily turned to insurrectionary illegalism, but then again she had just learned that her ancestors were aliens, so anything was possible. As such, she let the robot go about his business and promptly left the library.

Although a large amount of questions still swarmed her head, such as where her people came from, where they went, and of course, why Marley hated her guts, Penny was savvy enough to know that she wasn't going to get the answers to everything in just one day. Besides, it didn't really matter that much. Learning about that stalkerish feline wasn't going to drive her away, only some kind of mystical power would do. That was her belief and she was sticking to it, reason be damned.

Meandering through the halls, carefully stepping over a group of students using the floor as their personal nap space, it didn't take too long for her to find Sarah G. Lato, who conveniently was engaged in conversation with Gumball next to her locker. From what Penny could gather, they were deep in the middle of some stupid discussion about assigning fictional characters "stand names", or something like that, and were currently on the subject of a certain Christopher Robin.

"Look, I'm telling you." Sarah leaned in close to Gumball, red lips tensed back, teeth barred and eyes practically bulging as she recited her argument. "If Pooh was Christopher Robin's stand, it would be called [Bear Necessities]! They're both Disney, so there's no other choice!"

The azure cat quickly brought out various nonsensical charts from hammerspace. "It's precisely BECAUSE the song title is Disney that it cant work. It's just too obvious!" He grabbed a particular chart with various album pictures and shoved them in the ice cream's face. "Look, according to the charts here, the most obvious choice for Pooh would be [Bare Naked Ladies]. Plus, it fits into that x-ray vision power we talked about."

Penny once again employed her powers of tuning out irrelevant conversations, hoping that they would wrap it up before she got impatient. But as it happens, the time it took for her to grow impatient was about twelve seconds. She briefly began morphing her left hand into an ice cream scoop before getting control of herself, opting instead to cough loudly to get their attention.

"Aaah, Penny! I uh…it's so good to see you! Sorry for not noticing you back there!" Sarah rapidly turned around, her sheepish look met with an angry glare from her friend.

"Hiya Penny." said her boyfriend, who until then was too busy debating with Sarah to notice the mango-colored fairy, but was much better at acting calm about it.

"Sarah…" began Penny, shooting the ice cream girl with eye-beams made of pure "I'm more disappointed than mad" from point blank range, "nice to see that you've recovered from the inconvenience of steamed-ham poisoning. I believe you have some information for me that's over a week overdue."

"Information? Whatcha talking about?" said Gumball.

His questions went ignored by the other two. "Yeah yeah!" Sarah's eyes darted back and forth. "As it turns out, you're only supposed to eat steamed hams from Albany! Utica doesn't do it right! Aint that just dang interesting?

The deer fairy only leaned in closer, her eyes squinting as though to amplify the rays of irritation she emanated. "You're dodging the elephant in the room, you know."

Her accusation was met with a shrug and a bigger, nervous smile. "Elephant? Don't be silly, we don't have any students that are elephants!" With that, the lemon sherbet pulled out a tape recorder and hit a red button on the right side, playing a sitcom-esque laugh track that she attempted to laugh along with. Unfortunately, this corny bit of auditory humor did nothing to alleviate the tension, and it seemed Penny was about ready to go with the "ice cream scoop" idea.

"The bases, you idiot!" she suddenly blurted out, the exhaustion and frustration built up for over a week pouring forth. "I have been agonizing for days because that stupid slut of an alien cat has been trying to sexually harass my Gummypuss, and I NEED those bases RIGHT NOW to get rid of her!"

"I'm sorry…alien cat?" asked Gumball, the same question asked silently by Sarah with her raised eyebrow, or at least what amounted to an eyebrow.

"Long story. What's more important is the information you owe me. So spill the beans!"

"Eheh…funny story there…" Sarah looked like she was ready to bolt at a moment's notice. "You know how I was about to tell you about the bases but then got my head melted by Gumball's poor attempt at Mongolian throat singing back in chapter 2?"

Penny's left eye began to twitch the moment she heard "funny story". "I'm sorry…what?"

Now, if you've conversed with individuals for long enough, you're bound to here some variation of the phrase "funny story" when inquiring about something important. However, these "funny stories" rarely, if ever, leave anybody laughing, and more often than not result in great violence. Over twenty two people have been hospitalized this year alone due to an ill placed "funny story". This brings us to the Lato-Watterson equation, which postulates that a sentence including the phrase "funny story" has a zero percent chance of actually being followed by a funny story, "funny" of course being defined by as any phenomenon that generates at least 3.5 Grouchos. And the higher the importance of the subject of the "funny story", the less funny this story will actually be.

And given the importance that getting rid of Marley was to Penny, it was safe to say that whatever story Sarah was about to tell would be very unfunny indeed.

"See…thing is…" the ice cream cone began, her face cringing into oblivion, "Remember that fanfic I was talking about? Well, my knowledge of "the bases" was based off of her story. But as it turns out, she pulled that definition out of her ass. So she's utterly clueless, and therefor, I'm clueless."

Before she could even react, Sarah's view of Penny was gone, replaced with a minotaur-pig beast with eight ice cream scoops for arms. Or at least, she thought that's what she saw, being immediately picked up by the beast and throttled around like a shake-weight made it impossible to get a clear view. "W-waaaaah!" she gurgled out, her face flying apart due to the violence of the shaking. "P-penny plea-"

"WHATTHEFRICKYOUTALKINGABOUTMANYOUCANTJUSTLIETOPEOPLEABOUTFANFICTIONINATRAFFICJAMWHERETHEFRICKDOYOUTHINKYOUGETTHEGALLTOLIETOMEABOUTFANFICTIONBASESFRICKINTALKINABOUTTHEPIZZAUPINNEWYORKNYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEH!"

"Penny calm down!" shouted Gumball, grabbing her cow-like tail in an attempt to restrain the monstrosity his girlfriend had turned into. "Uuuh, the power of Christ compels you! The power of Christ compels you! The power of-"

 _Smack!_ The feline quickly found his efforts were in vain as he found himself swatted away by Penny's whip-like appendage, sending him careening down the hall a good twenty feet or so. This, as it turned out, seemed to do the trick, because a few seconds later it dawned on Penny that she had just injured the love of her life. Guilt quickly washed through her body, absorbing and suppressing the rage that was sustaining her minotaur form. As quickly as she had transformed, she reverted to her natural state and dropped Sarah onto the ground, her face by this point a jumbled, slushy mess only capable of blubbering nonsensically.

"Gummy!" she exclaimed as the magnitude of what she had done dawned on her. She immediately rushed over to her fallen loved-one's position, kneeling over and grasping his hands. "I'm so so so sorry! Please be okay! I didn't mean to…"

Gumball blushed heavily as he felt the warmth of her hands clasp his own. "It's…agh…it's fine, I sustain much worse damage from my antics with Darwin." Although he didn't need Penny's help to get up, he allowed her to do so anyways as courtesy. "But seriously, somebody fill me in. What the hell are these bases, and why are they so important?"

The fairy grasped Gumball's shoulders and stared deep into his eyes to convey the direness of the situation. "The bases…" she began, her tone ominous and foreboding, "are a mystical weapon powered by romance, forged by the fires of the internet. By completing the ritual, we can blast Marley back to whatever horrific planet she came from!"

Her boyfriend didn't seem entirely convinced. "Don't you think you're going a little overboard with this? I mean, I get why you're upset. That little weirdo has been making everyone uncomfortable." Gumball turned and gestured at the feline in question, who was busy munching on tide pods upon the unconscious body of Tobias. "But something tells me that outright violence is just going to make things worse. If Banana Joe's testimony is correct, there's a helluva lot more going on than what meets the eye here, and Marley could be just a victim of it all."

"Banana…Joe?" It had just occurred to Penny that she had been doing a bit too good of a job at blocking out conversations in order to concentrate, so that must have entirely passed over her. "I…may have not been paying attention there. What did Joe find?"

"Something…blurb…about Marley having a douchebag of a father who takes the form of a bluish glow and seems to be able to be offended by his daughter's existence." Sarah struggled to get the words out, her face not entirely recomposed from the abuse suffered earlier.

Penny suddenly felt like she was starting to piece things together. "So…that thing about her being an alien…an abusive father…I think I'm getting it!"

"Whatcha figure there, Penny?"

The fairy smiled serenely at Gumball, all traces of frustration gone with a surprising speed. "It's all clear! She must be here on earth as some sort of punishment for her craziness!" She giggled gleefully to herself as the feeling of enlightenment overwhelmed her. "And her abusive father is the reason why she's crazy, and she's latching on to you because she's starved of affection! Oooh, it's cliché and kinda stupid, but at least it makes sense!"

"So clearly," Gumball added, "the way to stop her madness is not through beating her to a bloody pulp, or invoking some magical ritual, but by showing her the error of her ways."

"Aaaaaaand maybe calling child protective services?" offered Sarah.

"That too. But first, she needs to know that she's not alone."

"That's great and all, but how are we supposed to be friends with…that?" She gestured down the hall, where the inky black cat of doom, having decidedly gotten bored of eating tide pods, was now throwing them at passersby.

Gumball put his hand to his chin and pondered. "Well, from what I've seen on TV, when people drink too much and act crazy, all their friends stage some sort of party for them, except it's not a party, because it's kind sad and such, and they all try to help him."

"An intervention, you mean?"

"Yeah, an intervention!" The blue cat stood firm and proud, having thought of this up all by himself. "We're going to host an intervention party for her! And we'll invite everyone in our class, and try to understand why she acts the way she does, and we'll have a big cry or something, and then everything will be better. That's how it works on TV anyways."

"Sounds great!" said Penny, equally elated. "But there's just one slight problem."

"And what might that be?"

"How are you going to convince our class to go out of their way to help someone as bonkers as Marley?"

Penny once again gestured over to the cat in question, who seemed to have ditched merely throwing tide pods in favor of straight up assaulting principle Brown when he asked her to stop. The furry slug realized too late that it was a mistake to come between Marley and her tide pods, and found himself covered in orange and purple cleaning liquid. From the distance, Gumball, Penny, and Sarah could hear the cat proclaim "Look at me! Look at me! I'M the principle now!", or something to that effect.

"Eh, I'll think of something." Gumball said dismissively. "On another note, Penny, you wouldn't happen to know where Bobert is, do you? He's supposed to help me with my homework, and by help, I mean give me all the answers."


	9. Anarcho Darwinism

Chapter 9: Anarcho-Darwinism, the Ideology of the Future!

 **A/N: Empathomorphosis was filmed on location with the men and women of the Elmore Police Department**

And so it came to pass that after school (or at least, what passed as school) that day, Sarah G. Lato and Gumball Watterson began the arduous task of rounding up people in their class for Marley's intervention. Conveniently, most everyone was still roaming the halls despite the school day being over, as they had the day before. With the absence of any form of staff to impede them, Miss Simian's class got the idea of turning the classroom and the surrounding halls into a "teenage fortress", with barricades constructed out of desks, chairs, tank traps, and random bits of spikey vines that Tobias attempted to pass off as "barbed wire". Between various bouts of lounging around, the students all pitched in to build up the ramparts, and by Wednesday afternoon they were mostly finished, with only the northern front still lacking proper material. Although difficult to step over, it made Gumball and Sarah's task easier as nearly every student of relevance was guaranteed to be somewhere in this fortress of solitude.

Penny would have loved to help, but as things stood right now she had her own issues to work out. Bobert's recent revelations left her with a lot of questions, and she figured the best way to get to the bottom of things (aside from probing Marley for answers) was to comb through her fairy lineage and try and piece together what happened from there. Plus, with everything Gumball and friends were dealing with, she would rather not add the knowledge that their classmate they've known throughout their lives is actually descended from space aliens onto their list of troubles. That could wait until after Marley was taken care of.

Besides, she reasoned, if she was going to spill the beans, the least she could do was wait until she found out whether or not the species she came from had a good reputation. For all she knew, her fairy ancestors could have been the galactic equivalent of That One Guy who stands in the corner at parties complaining about the music and making Rick and Morty references. You know, THAT guy.

She shook the thoughts of cringey pickle jokes from her head. The only way she was going to know for sure was to comb through her family history for clues, and the best way to do that was using the data Bobert provided her on a flash drive. The robot had been nice enough to leave it for her before it decided to help Darwin on whatever asinine task the goldfish came up with, so at the very least, she could skim through it on her computer. And hey, this was an information goldmine. There was no telling how many ancient secrets could be located on this drive.

Unfortunately, as she soon found out, reading historical documents ranks right up there with "watching paint dry" as an activity of boredom, and before she knew it Penny began dozing off. These thick documents, often written in other languages, were reducing her ability to concentrate to Gumball levels.

At times, she found herself reading the same lines over and over

At times, she found herself reading the same lines over and over

At times, she found herself reading the same lines over and over

 _This is getting ridiculous_ she thought. It'd been over an hour by now, and she hadn't turned up anything useful or interesting. Not that she could recall anything interesting that happened in the 1330's. Other than the black death, anyways. But Penny soon learned that the area around Poland, at the time, was barely even affected by the plague. It was just a big bubble of purity sitting in the middle of Europe. She groaned in a loud and over-the-top fashion. "The ONE interesting thing that happened in this time period," the deer fairy grumbled to herself, "and my ancestors had nothing to do with it!"

After this revelation, Penny decided that rather than continuing to torture herself, her time would be better suited checking in on Sarah and Gumball and their quest for intervention guests. Whatever progress, or lack thereof, they had made couldn't be any more disappointing than this doldrum that was research. Given that it was her boyfriend's duty to be the "charismatic one" and convince people to take part in their scheme, the shapeshifter decided to call Sarah, who was more likely available to pick up.

And sure enough, after a couple of rings, Penny was met with an ear-piercing "Hiiiiyooooo!"

If this were a less important call, Penny probably would have hung up right now. "Sarah, could you PLEASE refrain from killing my eardrums whenever you answer the phone? I'm not elderly, I can hear you just fine."

"Woops! My bad!" she heard Sarah say, in a voice loud enough to indicate that she clearly didn't take any of that advice in. "Funny thing is, I was just about to call you! How's that research of yours coming along?"

"It's…uh…it's a work in progress." That was a major understatement, but Penny figured she'd rather not bog anyone else down with her frustration over this side project. "Actually, I was calling to ask about that whole intervention thingy. How many people have you convinced to help out?"

"Much better than expected!" the ice cream girl beamed. Penny could almost feel her bright smile coming from the other end of the phone. "As it turns out, everyone we've talked to so far wants to pitch in to help."

"Wait, they're actually on board with this? I didn't know Gumball was THAT good at negotiating."

"As it turns out," exclaimed Sarah, observing Gumball in conversation with Sussie the chin-puppet, "pretty much everyone gets something good out of "fixing" Marley. If nothing else, to get her to stop terrorizing everyone. Off the top of my head, Alan agreed to help because Marley tried to attack his girlfriend and drank all the hydrogen peroxide he was using for an experiment. Clayton apparently wants her gone because her shapeshifting is cramping his style. Tina Rex is pitching in because…hold on."

Penny heard a brief pause as the ice cream girl presumably asked Gumball for the necessary information. "Oh right, Marley called her fat, and it hurt Tina's feelings. Somehow. And from the looks of it, Sussie just wants to help because Gumball offered her free breadsticks. Since I'm broke, do you mind ordering enough breadsticks for about thirty people?"

"Are you serious?" the deer groaned. "Why did you two agree to order tons of breadsticks without even consulting me? On the list of things that are not cool, this is VERY Not Cool."

Penny's rant was interrupted by a sudden text from Gumball, reading "A movie by Shane Dawson."

When this was all over, she needed to tell her boyfriend that he should stop trying to make running gags. For everyone's sake.

"Anyways, you two…keep doing whatever it is you think you're doing. I'll call you back later." With that, Penny hung up to return to her research. While talking to Sarah alleviated stress a little bit, her shrill voice didn't help too much. It was strange, she never really thought of Sarah's voice as being annoying before. Maybe the stress of everything that was happening was making her hypersensitive to the flaws of others?

Regardless, that could be solved another time. The mango fairy knew she needed to get back to her research if she really wanted to learn anything, but it was just so damn boring. As much as she hated to admit it, now was the time for her to activate the Godzilla Threshold…

She would have to ask her parents.

Briskly heading downstairs, Penny found that both her mom and dad were together on the couch, engaging in one of their favorite pastimes: watching crappy sitcoms. Mr and Mrs Fitzgerald happened to be watching a particularly awful show, even by their standards, which Penny thought was called _The Samus and Pikachu Show_ or something like that. She had only seen one episode of it, but from what she got it was a show that purported to be an action adventure type thing, but was actually just a crappy parody of its own concept full of overdone meta humor, self-deprecation, and copious references to other, much better media for the sake of having references. It was a miracle how this thing was on its third season. From the looks of it, her parents shared her sentiments.

"Honestly Patrick," said Mrs Fitzgerald, "why DO we even continue to watch this show?"

Her husband turned towards her with a half-asleep expression, the low quality of the sitcom clearly draining him. "I've told you before, we're watching it because everyone else is watching it."

"And why is everyone else watching it?"

"So that they can complain about how terrible it is! Now that I think about it, it's a brilliant marketing scheme…"

"Ahem…mom, dad?"

Penny's parents were more than happy to turn away from the awful program and its endless set of "jokes" about round objects. "Ah, Penny dear! I'd recommend not watching with us, otherwise you'll get sucked into its awfulness and your life will end up being based around sarcasm and snark!" From her tone, it seemed Mrs Fitzgerald was only half-joking.

"Mom, I'm a teenager, my life already IS based around sarcasm and snark. Besides, I'm not here to watch bad things for the purpose of getting mad at them. That would be stupid. I'm actually trying to do some research on my heritage. Can you help?"

Mr Fitzgerald's empty eyes lit up a bit, as history was always a favorite subject of his. "Of course, I for one would be happy to help!" He turned to his wife, "See, I TOLD you that history degree would come in handy one of these days."

"Keep telling yourself that." Mrs Fitzgerald snarked.

By now, Penny was used to her parents engaging in passive aggressive jabs at each other. Supposedly, it was a sign of love. "Dad, you wouldn't happen to have any information about the origins of the Polish side of our family, would you?"

Patrick's smile dropped a bit, given that this was a more difficult subject than he anticipated. "That's ah…that's a tricky one, actually. I think it's on your mom's side too. What about it do you want to know?"

"Well…" she tried to figure out how to word things in a way that didn't sound too weird. After all, she didn't want to explain all the stuff about Marley right now. "We have this little project thingy in class, I'll explain the details later, but part of it involves tracing our origins. I got some records from Bobert, but for whatever reason, that part of our family only-"

"You're wondering why the fairy part of our family only extends back 700 years and has no prior history, aren't you?" By the look in his eyes, Penny could tell that her father not only knew exactly what she was talking about, but probably already looked into this himself.

Her mother's downward glance suggested the same thing. "Penny, we'd hate to break it to you, but it's as much of a mystery to us as it is to you. Those of us with much better resources have tried without success. All we know is that during the second world war, there were unconfirmed reports of the Germans discovering strange artifacts around Krakow…which by now you probably know is where our fairy origins trace back to."

Mrs Fitzgerald looked to her husband, as if silently asking him to explain the rest. "Now, my great grandfather, his folks, and some other families they knew managed to get to America before the outbreak of the war. Who knows if it was dumb luck or some kind of encoded premonition, but whatever the case they knew that something bad was about to happen…" It seemed almost painful for him to talk about this, as the fascination was entirely gone from his voice and replaced by pure duty, the need to impart this knowledge to his daughter.

At any rate, Penny could certainly tell this was uncomfortable. "I'm sorry," she said with a stutter, "if this is too much I'll-"

"No, it's fine." Mr Fitzgerald insisted. "After all, it's just history." He quickly switched the tv off so that there wouldn't be any more distractions. "Anyways, once the Nazis invaded and began implementing Generalplan Ost, well…I'm sure you probably know what happened to those of us who didn't get out. At first, they just lobbed the fairies in with gypsies, but then they discovered something down there that made them realize we were different. It saved our people from the fate of millions of others, at the expense of giving them something arguably worse.

"As for what exactly happened to them, we're not quite sure, but we do know this. Before the German invasion, there were at least five different types of fairy hybrids inhabiting the Polish region and other parts of Europe in small pockets. Antlered peanuts, antlered nautiluses, antlered king crabs, antlered coconuts, and antlered prisms. There was definitely an antler pattern there, for whatever reason. By 1946, however, peanuts like us were the only survivors in any meaningful population, and that's because we got out in time, the others having been…"

"Wait," said Penny, interrupting the pause, "I thought you said they escaped being killed?"

"No, I said they escaped the fate of the others." Patrick corrected, "Which, as you know, was either being gassed, starved, or shot. Mengele himself oversaw a secret camp complex a few miles outside Krakow, and though we don't know the nature of the research he and his team conducted, it's safe to say that judging on his reputation, it wasn't pleasant. Nor do we know what they discovered. It seems not even Hitler was aware of this operation, at least not to its fullest extent. All we know is that it was still active when the Soviet army rolled in. And whatever they saw was horrifying enough that they utterly leveled the entire complex the next day, destroying all research and as many records of its existence as they could."

Penny's dad stopped talking, partially to catch his breath but also because he really preferred not going over such dark parts of his family history. "Of course," Mrs Fitzgerald offered, picking up where her husband left off, "like we said, we're not sure what happened. The only reason we know any of this is due to stories passed down from a few survivors, and they didn't talk about what actually happened to them. The bottom line is though, much of the documentation and evidence that could point towards our more mysterious origins has been destroyed."

Penny sighed, the idea of another dead end in her research not sitting well with her in the slightest. "Is there anything at all out there that might have survived?"

Mr Fitzgerald scratched his chin. "Well, back in the medieval period, our ancestors did hold some kind of old castle complex in Krakow. It's kinda fallen into ruin, but some parts of it might have been overlooked by the Nazis. That's all I can think of off the top of my head." He would have elaborated more, but he was cut off by several unexpected texts, all at once. As he read them, he grew noticeably more concerned. "Honey…remember those stocks we invested in Apple?"

"Yes?" Mrs Fitzgerald replied, just as worried.

"Well, I don't want to alarm you but…" he looked pulled up what seemed to be a breaking news story on his phone, and the color drained from his shell. "Actually, I do need to alarm you, we need to sell them. Quickly! There's still time before the market closes!"

"W-what's going on?" said Penny, who was not very familiar with economics or stocks or anything like that. "Is there something wrong with those companies?"

"N-nothing dear!" Mrs Fitzgerald's voice was anything but reassuring. "This is just a…um…little blip in the market, your father is overreacting! It'll all be back to normal soon…"

* * *

"So, Darwin, let me get this straight. You decided, as a "prank", that it would be a GREAT idea manipulate offshore monetary assets of various private companies and majority shareholders and send business executives into an unwarranted panic that's currently spiraling out of control. Is that correct?"

"Well Mrs Mom, in my defense, it was Bobert that did most of it. I just sort of sat back and had a sandwich."

Anger could not begin to describe the seething torrent of rage that was flowing through Nicole Watterson. It was one thing for her adopted son to have taken up an edgy form of anarchism, it was another thing for him to randomly steal stuff. Those were both things she could tolerate, begrudgingly. But this? This was getting well beyond criminal territory and into "potentially screwing over entire nations" territory.

Nicole loudly groaned in a desperate bid to keep her anger in check. "I mean, I expected this kind of behavior from Gumball, but from _you_? Do you have ANYTHING to say for yourself?"

The goldfish gave a shrug of confusion. "Uuuuh, sorry? I mean, it's not like they need that money."

The blue cat-mom's eyes burned with the fury of a thousand suns. "DARWIN, YOU CAUSED A WORLDWIDE MARKET CRASH!"

Demonstrating her point, she motioned over towards the tv. The national news was blaring with downright apocalyptic predictions as newscasters frantically updated on the deteriorating situation. Somehow, whatever Bobert did caused a panic on the higher levels, snowballing into a much larger panic that was currently materializing in some kind of massive stock market crash as everybody sold their shares. At least, that's what Darwin could gather, he was never a good economist.

"In my defense, I originally thought Bobert was just going to help me teepee the house of Bill Gates. I didn't know he would go this far!"

Nicole's expression reverted to the default "not mad, just disappointed", a weapon powerful enough to fell any rowdy child. "You know, normal people take out their anger on society in healthy ways. Like playing violent video games, or watching violent movies, or complaining on the internet. Being angry at the ruling class is all well and good, but dragging everyone down with the worst market crash since 2008 is not going to help anyone!"

"It'll help us!" Darwin said, attempting to remain cheerful. "A lot of those mixed up funds were transferred into our bank account. And because Bobert set up a lot of…I dunno what he did, but some shenanigans involving a lot more money going into different places, our tracks are effectively covered. Which means we have free money! And that's good, right?"

Nicole narrowed her eyes. "Now, this is entirely hypothetical, but say I were to trust you and your judgement, and was perfectly okay with this level of theft. Exactly how much money are we talking about?"

"Uh, about three million dollars I think. That's a lot, right?"

"T-THREE MILLION?!" Nicole's eyes widened to the size of dinner plates and she briefly went catatonic. On the one hand, this was the kind of crime that could get their entire family put into prison for a very, VERY long time. But on the other hand, not only did that cover all the damages the Watterson family had done to Elmore in the past, it also left them with enough to finally not be in crippling debt. And all that money…oh the life she could live with it. She could get a personal yatch, a personal butler, a personal robot, a personal island…the possibilities were limitless.

"Mrs Mom, are you okay?"

"T-Three…million…" blubbered Nicole, passing out from sheer shock. Darwin poked her head with his foot to confirm that yes, indeed, she was unresponsive.

Really, all Darwin could do in this situation was give a mental shrug. This kind of stuff was weird even for Watterson standards.

After a few moments of awkward waiting, Darwin witnessed the form of a fat pink rabbit, his adopted father poke its head over the couch. "Weeeeell, now that your mother isn't listening, do you mind handing me the remote?" asked Richard Watterson. "This news stuff is kinda boring, and I'm missing the new episode of _Samus and Pikachu_."

The remote, as it happened, was literally on the coffee table in front of the couch. Reluctantly, Darwin walked over and grabbed the remote, dropping it in his father's lap, who proceeded to eagerly change the channel so that he could catch his favorite show. Unfortunately, it seemed he was a little late, as a different program of equally awful quality was beginning instead.

"Aw man!" Richard groaned, "Not _The Bradical Adventures of Normal Norman_!" He glared at Darwin, which wasn't particularly threatening considering he was a chubby bunny. "Now I have to make do with boring high school dramas. Thanks a lot!"

Darwin, however, was already on his way out the door. It was already past 5, and if Gumball and Sarah were able to deliver, that meant everybody was beginning to set up the cafeteria for the dreaded intervention by now. Balloons, barricades, pizza…he didn't know exactly what "interventions" involved, but they seemed like serious business. Apparently, they were going to try and talk Marley down or something?

As he walked down to the school, he wondered how anyone expected that to work. Marley was a psychotic stalker with a crush with no regard for anything around her and, from what Darwin had gathered, an utterly alien system of morals. And they were supposed to try and fix her problems? Even if they did, if Banana Joe was anything to go by, her father was bad enough to make Tina Rex's dad look like a cuddly kitten by comparison.

Darwin shook these thoughts off. Dealing with Mr Marley would come later. For now, they had to focus on the cat herself. As per instructions received from Penny a few minutes ago, he pulled out his phone and called the pizza place, putting an order in for two dozen baskets of breadsticks. Maybe the plan was to feed her into submission? He wasn't sure what the purpose of this was either. All he could do as he approached Elmore Jr High was hope that Gumball and the others knew what they were doing.

 **A/N: By the way, Not Cool is probably the worst movie I've ever seen in my life.**


	10. It's Your Intervention, Charlie Brown!

Chapter 10: It's Your Intervention, Charlie Brown!

 **A/N: Remember when Fred Durst was relevant? Neither do I!**

It had been another one of those days.

Marley had never been the type to be particularly successful at anything, but today felt like the day she really blew it with Gumball. Which was saying a lot. Apparently, grabbing folks in the crotch area is considered very much a taboo in this land. Father never mentioned that, but then again Father didn't mention a whole lot of things, so it had really been up to her to figure things out.

She looked into the mirror shard she kept by her makeshift bed, and as she expected, the lack of food was taking its toll. Not only could she barely maintain a grasp on sanity, but her cat-form was beginning to deteriorate on the physical level. It was now almost impossible to hide her insectoid wings protruding from her back, or the jagged, very not-cat-like tail that was taking form. And that wasn't even getting into how much her body felt and looked like it was melting.

And it wasn't like this was for a lack of effort on her part. Marley had sincerely tried just about everything. Metal, cleaning supplies, other students, but none of them had the proper sustenance…what was it called? Ah yes, stem cells. That was what she needed. According to Father, they were primarily found in something called "babies", but like with most things, he never bothered to go into detail. Not even when she explained she was starving; Father merely responded to that with "Think of it as extra motivation." and left it at that. Thus, the cat found herself rapidly degenerating both mentally and physically in her desperate "trial and error" in finding these "stem cells".

Feeling overwhelming sadness come on again (since Marley technically lacked tear ducts, she was unable to cry), she gripped her eye sockets, digging her claws into them to regain composure. Remember what Father said, emotions are weakness, and weakness is not a trait of the Karthuun. Despite repeating this mantra in her head and digging her claws deeper into her flesh, Marley couldn't help but feel overpowered by the sheer desperation of her situation. She was going to fail, she was going to lose form, and she was either going to starve to death or be killed. She would die alone and unloved and it would all be thanks to her own stupidity and incompetence…

All she had to do was woo Gumball. That was ALL she needed. It was a simple task. Father assured her it would be, and repeatedly berated her for not completing it. But she was too much of a screw up to even manage that. Worse, she noticed over the past several days, that despite her mission only calling for her to pretend to like Gumball for some higher purpose, Marley noticed she was developing something…genuine for her target. She found herself actually concerned with what might make Gumball happy, and what he thought of her. This was literally the opposite of what was supposed to happen, especially considering how she had yet to figure out these invisible traits that the blue cat seemed to value so much.

Her session of brooding and self-pitying was interrupted by a sudden _THUNK_ against the wall. Marley momentarily started reverting to her primal form, as part of her "fight or flight" response, bracing herself for whatever attack might come. This was it, either this was random divine justice from HYBRID for taking too long, or perhaps the denizens of earth had figured out what she really was. Either way, this was the end.

And yet, nothing happened. She heard the sound of a vehicle driving off, but other than that all was quiet. Retracting her mandibles and scythe-like appendages with great effort, the black not-quite-a-cat-anymore peaked out the hole in the wall that passed as a window. The absence of sound was accompanied by the absence of any visible threat. Turning to look at the back wall, she found that the source of the noise was some kind of extremely primitive stick, with an unidentified suction apparatus attached that she had seen in what they called "bathrooms". Puzzling over whether this was intended to kill her or not, the feline noticed a roll of paper, haphazardly taped to the stick.

It was fortunate that eyes which could universally translate words were something Marley inherited from her Father, otherwise the message scribbled on the paper would make no sense. Even then, it looked very hastily written, and smelled strongly of some kind of fruit substance, which interfered with her ability to translate. After some minutes and a lot of squinting, she was able to get the gist of it.

 _Dear Marley,_ it said, _I have come to realize that you were right and I was wrong. You really are the perfect girl for me. Fear not, for I have abandoned that no-good traitor whore hellbeast known as Penny and will come happily into your arms. Meet me in the school gym tonight at 9 pm to make this official. Hope to see you there! Signed, Gumball._

Well, that was a rough interpretation anyways, with a bit of added embellishment. But a rough interpretation was all she needed. It happened. It finally happened. Right as she was on the edge of despair, about to give up on her pathetic existence, a miracle happened, and she would be able to complete her task. As her ears pulsed and eyes glowed with sheer joy, all of her self-pity was forgotten.

Of course, she wasn't really sure what a "gym" was, nor what "9pm" meant either, but neither of these things stopped Marley from bursting out of the factory on revitalized wings, bigger and shinier than ever before. Against an overcast sky with the faintest traces of orange from the sunset, the bug-cat-thing made a beeline for Elmore Junior High. This was her moment of triumph, and by HYBRID she was going to make it count…

* * *

As Penny Fitzgerald got her first good look at the progress so far, she could tell that she and the other students still had a lot of work to do. Despite having the entire class mobilized, it appeared that most of the effort on setting up this "intervention" was spent on reorganizing the tank traps and balloons into cool patterns to create an intimidating effect, which is hard to do when you're literally using balloons. Between that, and the poor paint job on the "Happy Intervention Marley!" sign, which had yet to actually be put up, the school gym looked more like the aftermath of a weird frat party than any sort of accommodating safe space.

It didn't strike her as too much of a surprise. Getting a bunch of 13 year olds together to make a "party" with the intention of revamping someone's personality or getting rid of them entirely was always a crapshoot, especially in a place as weird as Elmore. Even so, this level of laziness struck her as rather inexcusable. And from the looks of it, almost everyone was engaged in activities entirely unrelated to setting up the intervention. Honestly, were they even trying?

Perhaps one of the few students actually getting off his butt was Alan, the all-loving workaholic balloon, who was in the process of inexplicably dragging a few tires around using just his balloon string. Teri also seemed to be working, but considering that only consisted of incessantly spraying everything with disinfectant, the golden deer figured it best to talk to Alan first. "Um, excuse me" said Penny, "but what's going on? Everything's kind of a mess around here and it doesn't seem like anybody's doing anything?"

Alan sighed and let go of the tires. "That's because they're not. Ever since 7:30, nearly the entire workforce has been on strike. I've been trying to pick up the slack, but my altruism can only get us so far…"

"On _strike_?" the mango fairy said in disbelief. "What could they possibly be on strike for?"

"Lack of promised breadsticks." answered a voice coming from Jamie the minotaur. "I was promised breadsticks, and if you expect me to work without grain products, then there will be serious consequences involving you, me, an Adam Sandler movie, and a lobster!"

"Yeah, I'll be honest," added Tobias, "most of us are just here for the breadsticks. You DID order them, right?" The prospect of not having breadsticks sent a shiver down the rainbow blob's…equivalent of a spine.

This panic was shared by Carrie, who planned on using the breadstick binge as a chance to bond with Darwin some more. "Oh sweet graham crackers, I think she forgot the breadsticks!"

"We're here so that we can fix Marley, NOT so that you can indulge on food!"

Now, most folks would back off upon seeing Penny begin to turn red, as she was doing now. Tobias, however, was not most folks. "But what else is going to be my motivation?"

Penny's limit broke, and Tobias found himself standing face to face with the form of a demonic redish-purple gorgon. Like any brave man, he responded by running to the bathroom to hide, screaming like a little girl. The serpentine beast and her snake hair turned their attention towards the general direction of the other students, eyes burning with the rage of a thousand virgins. "THIS IS YOUR MOTIVATION!" Penny and her snake heads hissed in unison. "WE ARE SETTING UP A HAPPY LITTLE INTERVENTION IF IT KILLS US!"

That did the trick, sort of. Fear quickly overrode laziness in every student present. Even normally fearless people like Tina and Jamie nearly jumped out of their skin and quickly got to work. Unfortunately, while fear is a great motivator, it failed at giving the kids any real sense of direction. Almost immediately, Penny witnessed the gym become overrun with a series of frantic, nonsensical actions as various kids grabbed whatever they could get their hands on and use it haphazardly on whatever was in the vicinity. Tires were being stacked on chairs. Banana Joe was feverishly attempting to spray paint some kind of Satanic pentagram on the ground. And she could have sworn she saw somebody attempt to use Carmen the cactus as a hammer. Or maybe a baseball bat.

Whatever anger Penny had was used up in her previous outburst. Now, it took all her willpower not to curl up in the middle of the floor and think solemnly about her life choices. Fortunately, the arrival of her boyfriend and his brother snapped her out of this potential stupor.

"Penny, glad you could make it!" said Gumball. "Just so you know, you don't have to worry about the breadsticks, I already ordered them about twenty minutes ago. They should be arriving shortly."

"And," Darwin continued, clearly excited by this next prospect, "if Larry doesn't bring them here within the next ten minutes, they're free! Though, we might have to order some more when the actual intervention starts. Did you bring your credit card?"

"I think we've got slightly bigger problems then a lack of snack food." The fairy motioned in the general direction of the utter cacophony occurring all around them. "None of these people seem to know what they're doing, like, at all. And I'm pretty sure I saw Anton die at least twice. Such is the hazards of being toast."

Gumball didn't seem particularly concerned. "Eh, they'll work themselves out eventually. You know that thing about one hundred Shakespeare plays eventually producing a monkey or something? It's like that."

"That's one hundred typewriting monkeys trying to produce Shakespeare," Penny corrected, "and I'm pretty sure the analogy doesn't work here. This is more the equivalent of a bunch of monkeys flinging poo at a mutant giraffe and claiming that it's an undiscovered Picasso painting."

"Relaaaax Penny!" The azure cat in his attempt to be suave began rubbing the fairy's shoulders. "The intervention doesn't start until 9, right? And it's 7:45 right now. I may not be the best at math, but we have over an hour before-"

 _CRASH_

Without exception, everyone froze in place and whipped their heads in the direction of the sudden noise, just in time to witness a ball of blackness come crashing through the ceiling. Writhing in shifting darkness, the blob quickly slammed into the floor, knocking everybody back and ruining Banana Joe's hard work.

In the midst of the large crater formed by the impact, the inky dark blob began to take form among the shards of wood and wax that made up the floor. Everyone watched in horror as an unmistakable feline arm shot out of the goo, then another, then a pair of legs and a tail. The limbs were still fresh and dripping with ooze as the head mass took shape, revealing a pair of pointed ears and two burning golden eyes.

And a smile. Oh dear lord, that smile. That gaping, toothy, maniacal smile.

"Gumball my love! I've come to-"

The cat creature's smile immediately dropped from her face as she saw the disorder around her. Marley had come here expecting…well, she didn't really know what she was expecting. Perhaps something like her beloved lying on a bed of flowers naked. Or maybe some kind of golden energy ball that would ascend her to a higher plane of existence. Not this…menagerie of weirdos and degenerates. Her knowledge of earth might be limited, but even she knew that this isn't how romance usually works.

"Uuuh, what the hell is this?"

"Ah, uh, Marley!" Gumball attempted to smile away his nervousness, resulting in that ever-annoying t-face that people like to complain about. "It's uh…it's uh…"

Quickly, he turned back towards Darwin. "I thought you said she wouldn't be coming until 9 pm!" he whispered with a hiss.

Marley's face smoothed out as she glared menacingly. "How are we supposed to consummate our relationship with all these people around? Especially that…" she pointed an accusatory finger at Penny, "harlot!"

"Uh, well, the thing is," said Gumball, slowly backing away, "you're not supposed to be here yet! Our, uh, romance doesn't start until 9 pm, which is over an hour from now."

Marley cocked her head. "What the hell is an "hour" and "9 pm"?"

"Uh dude," whispered Darwin, "I don't think she actually understands human measurements of time."

"Proooobably should have seen that coming."

The black cat clenched her fists, anger and confusion visibly rising. "You're missing the point! I cant mate with you with all these people watching! I have to tell Father first! And none of you will want to see him, so I suggest you leave the room!"

"Erm, that's just it Marley." This surprisingly soothing voice of reason came from Sarah, who was peaking out from her hiding spot in the bleachers. "We understand that you've been having a lot of…uh…family trouble."

"The hell are you talking ab-"

"It's alright," said Masami, again in a surprisingly soothing voice considering her attitude. "We heard it all from Banana Joe, you don't have to say anything."

"What?" The black cat recoiled. "What did he tell you?"

"He told us enough." Gumball admitted. "Look, we understand what's going on, at least partly."

"You understand NOTHING!" she shot back. "Have you even bothered to take a look at me? I'm an emaciated wreck, barely able to survive and maintain form! Like, actually look at my body for a moment!" Marley ripped off her own left hand, holding the dripping, rapidly deforming limb up in the air to prove her point. "And you think you can HELP me!?"

Gumball beamed a confident smile. "Well, that's what we're all here for! Isn't that right guys?"

"Actually," said Tina, "I was mostly here for the breadsticks."

A bunch of other students nodded in affirmation.

"Oh you guys are a REAL load of help." Gumball growled. He then quickly put back on the smile for the sake of Marley. "Well, uh, anyways, that's one reason why they're here. So that we can help you! We understand that you've been having some, uh, daddy issues, to put it mildly. And I don't know if you know this, but nobody should treat their daughter the way he apparently does! Even if their daughter is a freaky gooey alien cat bug with bad touch and-"

Penny coughed and jabbed her elbow against Gumball, prompting him to get back on topic. "Point is, we realize that it's not your fault you're nuts. And we're all willing to help, even Penny."

The deer fairy nodded. "It's true. I know we've had our differences, and you've kinda tried to molest my boyfriend, like, a lot of times, but it's clear to me now that there's something a lot more serious going on. We want to help you." The girl smiled, putting a hand on Marley's shoulder as though to comfort a small child. "And I think the first step to doing that is confronting your father."

For a moment, there was silence. A silence which was very quickly interrupted as the black cat began to laugh. Maniacally. That sort of crazy, completely unhinged laughter, which to Penny seemed to have the exact opposite effect of normal laughter, actively draining any joy from the room and replacing it with fear. This was the kind of thing she had only heard from crazy supervillains in movies, not from actual people. And certainly not from someone who went to school with her.

After what seemed like forever, Marley's laughter came to an abrupt halt, her face contorting into a deranged grimace. "You…you really are clueless, you know that?" She giggled, her left eye twitching a couple times. "Utterly…utterly clueless. There is no help…no help for me…"

"I'm sure you might think that," the golden fairy said, reassuringly, "but it's not true. You have an entire roomful of people who (provided they get their breadsticks) are willing and able to help you. He won't be able to hurt you if he knows that you have our support!"

Marley's expression remained unchanged. "Hehe…utterly, UTTERLY…you don't know what he is. Father is far beyond anything you can imagine! He is like a god unto lesser beings! And soon, I will be worthy of his love. And when that happens…" her face changed to an evil smirk, "he'll let me help him kill you and everything on this planet!"

"Gumball, what's she talking about?" said the goldfish, not really expecting his brother to know.

"I don't know but she's creeping me out! More than usual, I mean…"

Penny, however, remained undaunted. "Look, I understand, he might have conditioned you to think that's what love is, but it isn't. Love doesn't involve hurting people for doing something you don't like. Love is…well…it's an unconditional feeling of admiration and appreciation, to put it one way."

"I'm pretty sure we had a whole episode on it back in season four, come to think of it." added Sarah.

The black cat snarled, her jaws quickly turning back into pincers and her arms morphing into mantis-like appendages. "I've had enough of this! Either you hand over Gumball, or there will be consequences!"

She lunged for Gumball, but found herself cut off as her enemy, that goddamn fairy, stood defiantly between her and her goal. All pretense of friendliness was thrown aside. "No…you are NOT going to be taking Gumball, or hurting anybody. I've said it before and I'll say it again, we're going to have a proper intervention if it kills-"

"Breadstick delivery!"

Larry Needleheimer, man of a million jobs, immediately paid for his poorly timed delivery. In a flash, Marley snapped herself around and flung herself upon the overworked rock-man. Ravenously clawing at everything around her, she impaled two crates of breadsticks with her scythes, bringing them up to her face to devour them, to Larry's horror and everyone else's anger.

"P-please…have mercy! Just get off! I'm not paid enough to deal with monsters!"

Upon consuming everything in her grasp, Marley leaped off him and growled with disappointment. "Aaaaagh! Not again! These things have no sustenance either!"

"Well," said Carmen, always happy to lecture people, "if I were you, I'd think about eating less carbs and more proteins, fruits, and vegeta-"

"OH SHUT THE FUCK UP!"

Carmen immediately shut up.

"Well, I see that this was all just an attempt to get the jump on me!" Marley's tail retracted as her body elongated. "But that's not going to happen! I don't need anybody's help!"

Sprouting wings, the mantis-creature made another lightning quick motion, shooting her way over Penny and grabbing with clawed feet, pulling Gumball into the air before anybody could react. Penny jumped up and attempted to stop the black shapeshifter, but was quickly cut down by a swipe of Marley's scythe-claw, smacking her into the wall.

"Ahahah…ahahahahah! I am victorious! Nothing can stop me!" Her maniacal laughter picking back up, Marley's wings grew in size and buzzed with the speed needed for her to jet out the same hole that she came in. Desperately trying to squirm his way out, Gumball screamed for help as he was carried off by the alien insectoid.

"G-Gumball!" Penny called out impotently, pealing herself off the wall. As Sarah helped her to her feet, all she could feel was the overwhelming horror that everything was going wrong. "She's…she took Gumball…" she choked out, on the verge of tears.

"She rejected our intervention!" gasped Sarah

"She ate our breadsticks!" yelled Banana Joe, followed by a near unison cry of "YEAH!"

"Oh my gosh what are we going to do what are we going to do? All those books on insurrectionary anarchism didn't tell me how to deal with situations like this!"

As Darwin ran around in a blind panic and the other students riled themselves up in anger over their lack of food, Penny snapped out of her state of shock. _Now is not the time for fear. Your boyfriend needs you. Save him from that monster!_ The fairy stood back up and brushed herself off, her face like stone as a new sense of determination filled her.

"Sarah? Get the others ready. I'm going to do something really stupid, but we need all the speed we can get."

The ice cream girl gulped. "And…that is?"

"Hijack a bus. Come on, get moving!"


	11. Well, that Didn't Work

Chapter 11: Well, That Didn't Work

 **A/N: A friendly reminder that Gnomeo and Juliet: Sherlock Gnomes hits theaters March 23rd. May Lucifer help us all, for God has clearly abandoned this world.**

Being suddenly abducted by an insectoid creature and jerked through the air is not something that most people would find comfortable. And for once, Gumball was most people. It was made especially unpleasant by the erratic flight pattern of his kidnapper, who couldn't seem to fly in a straight line to save her life. He may as well have been held hostage by a drunk pilot.

Fortunately, this didn't last too long. Marley seemed to be as sick of her own flying as Gumball was, and suddenly the blue feline felt a rather abrupt impact on solid ground. The force of the landing knocked the wind out of him, and had he landed on something softer than dirt he might have been seriously injured. Even if he was, the cat didn't exactly have time to focus on it, because a moment later he found himself straddled and pinned down by his kidnapper, the terrifying black mantis that was formerly a cat like him.

"Good enough" the bug buzzed. Well, actually, that was a lie, it wasn't far enough away for her liking. The only reason Marley stopped here was because she found Gumball too heavy to carry, but she could whine about that later. Now was the time to claim her prize and prove to her father that she was worthy! Victory was within reach.

For the first time, Gumball was able to get a good look at what his assailant had transformed into. A dark, shining mantis-like figure, with two pairs of legs, great scythes where hands would be on a normal person, a pair of diagonal pincers, and giant, purple compound eyes that seemed to be nearly the size of Gumball's head, she was even more intimidating out here in the dark, the streetlights bouncing off of her giving her the appearance of illumination. Holding down her beloved with additional appendages, she swiftly cut a diagonal line with her right scythe-claw, ripping his sweater open. The bluish cat winced, his terrified eyes meeting Marley's giant, compound kaleidoscope gaze. All he could do was pray to whatever cosmic force was watching that she would be gentle…

"Get off my brother you Zorak-looking motherfucker!"

Marley didn't even have time to turn towards the direction of the sound before she felt herself getting knocked off of Gumball. As the bugmorph spiraled out of control, she was repeatedly impacted by a sensation coming from her right that felt like bullets. Specifically, really fast Styrofoam bullets that hit way harder than they had any right to.

How she hated that stupid goldfish…

"Ugh…D-darwin, is that you?" Gumball suddenly found himself being pulled up by his adopted goldfish brother and his girlfriend Penny. Disoriented, dizzy, yet grateful, he almost immediately tipped over and collapsed into his brother's arms.

Penny gave a quick glare over at Marley as the bug attempted to get up, only to be shot down by a few extra bullets from Darwin for good measure. Satisfied that it was incapacitated, she turned her attention towards her boyfriend, grabbing him from Darwin's arms into hers.

"Are you alright Gummy? That monster didn't hurt you, did she? Because if she did…" Penny began to glow red, "I'm going to tear her limbs off and feed them to the Bengali alligators! Without ketchup!"

Recombobulating himself, Gumball shook his head, and assured her that other than the torn clothes and the sore back, he was relatively unharmed. But turning towards the road, he realized he had a couple of questions.

"Uh, hey Penny?"

"Yes?"

"How'd you get here so fast? And why is there a bus next to us with everyone on it?"

Penny turned towards the conspicuous yellow school bus in question. Not everyone was on it, granted, as Tobias, Ocho, and Sarah decided it would be more fun to ride on Tina Rex (who didn't seem to mind carrying a few extra people). But otherwise, most of their class was on board, driven by what looked like a very confused Rocky, fuzzy orange muppet and part time bus driver/janitor.

"Well…" she cleared her throat, "you see…"

"Penny here tried to hijack a bus." From Tina Rex's tone, she sounded right about done for the day. "Emphasis on "tried". Because as it turns out, she's really bad at it."

"Could we not talk about that right now?"

"Well I mean she's right," added Tobias, "your idea of hijacking a bus was literally sticking a paper clip in the ignition and hoping it would start up."

"Uh, I recall that YOU were the one who tried to "hack into the bus's mainframe", if I'm not mistaken?" scoffed Sarah.

"Anyways," Tina continued, ignoring the bickering of the others, "Penny and Tobias made themselves look like idiots, no offense. Luckily, Rocky over here was still on janitor duty and offered to drive us, since apparently he doesn't really have anything better to do today."

Though Rocky didn't say anything, Penny could tell from the look on his face that he was wondering what exactly he got himself into, and was starting to regret this. She was about to say some words of comfort to Gumball, but the words slipped from her as she saw the crippled black mantis uncripple itself. In a process that looked very painful to all observing, Marley straightened her body and wings back up, twisting her limbs to get them working again.

Her wings began buzzing, clearly preparing to make an escape. Or perhaps she was planning to grab Gumball again. Whatever the case, Penny wasn't going to let this bug take to the air. Not this time.

With a surge of righteous fury, Penny took a running leap, springing skyward just as the mantis-cat was buzzing her wings and taking off. As Marley began to ascend, Penny knew that she wouldn't get another opportunity. She HAD to bring her down. With all her might, the fairy stretched out her right arm as she felt her momentum slowing, desperate to grasp onto her.

Just as she gripped something, she heard a sickening _CRACK_ , and the next thing she knew she had fallen back to the earth below, knocking the wind out of her. As she struggled to regain her senses, her vision too blurred to notice what was going on above her, she held out her hand right in front of her face, as she still felt something in it.

The sight of Marley spiraling out of control confirmed what Penny thought she saw: she had successfully grabbed Marley's wing and ripped it right off her body. Apparently, for all her shape shifting, regrowing body parts wasn't too easy for her, and the mantis crashed directly on top of the deer fairy before she even had the chance to get up.

"You…bastard!" Marley groaned, a distorted vibrato in her voice. "Those wings are delicate material! This is the last time you- OOF!"

Marley's rant was interrupted as Penny regained control, rolling the two of them over and positioning herself on top, fists clenched and ready to beat the stuffing out of the pinned creature. "This ends now, Marley! You're not going to hurt Gumball or anyone else ever again!"

The black, partially crippled insectoid feline merely chuckled. "Oh, I don't think so!"

Before Penny could land a hit, she felt a blinding pain in her chest as Marley kicked her stomach using both legs, with the force of a kangaroo on meth. With her opponent flying into the air again, the desperate alien made a mad dash for the road, her eyes frantically scanning for something, anything that could be used to help her go faster, to get out and heal. Something like…

A speeding car, driven by none other than Mr Robinson. In his usual manner, the greyish muppet had no regard for the speed limit, or anybody he nearly ran over. He would be the perfect vessel. Though she was drained of much of her strength, Marley was able to leap a good 20 feet into the air as the vehicle came by, landing perfectly on the roof with a loud thud.

"Hasta el visit!" she yelled triumphantly as the unwitting Mr Robinson carried her away to relative safety.

Much to everyone's surprise, no more so her own, Penny was able to channel her frustration towards goal-oriented shape shifting. As Gumball and Darwin looked on, her golden body quickly went on all fours, briefly taking an indistinct shape before rematerializing as a large, greyish-purple wolf, about half the size of the school bus.

"Get on, Gumball," the wolf growled, "we're going bug catching."

* * *

She grappled onto the top of the car with her left scythe, taking care not to dig in too hard, lest the driver take notice. Fortunately, it didn't seem like he was paying much attention, whoever he was. Marley breathed a sigh of relief: she was in the clear. She could return to the nest, heal, and then come back and kill everybody. This was just a temporary setback.

And then she looked behind her, and instantly realized that this wouldn't be that simple.

Swiftly approaching from the rear were, in order of magnitude of danger from least to greatest: a long yellowish vehicle that Marley presumed was for carrying large amounts of students, a giant lizard charging along to its left carrying that stupid ice cream girl and a few others, and most distressingly, a Karthuun that had figured out goal-oriented morphing. Either that, or her emotions somehow corresponded to "giant wolf with antlers."

Though she could barely make out who was on the wolf, she could presume Gumball was riding on her, and she also guessed that Darwin was with them. Not because she could actually see him. But because she could now see the all too familiar approach of hi speed Styrofoam bullets.

 _Well shit,_ the bug said to herself. Her pursuers were swiftly approaching, and that idiot at the wheel below her was slowing down for a traffic signal! This was a life or death situation! Could he not see the Styrofoam bullets?

Dodging another round of projectiles, Marley used her free arm to cleave a hole in the car, dropping down into the passenger's seat, plopping down next to a very confused and rather angry Mr Robinson, who was not in the mood for any weirdness.

"Hey bug-face! I don't give free rides! Go freeload somewhere else!"

For his trouble, the muppet was uplifted from his seat and thrown out the hole in the ceiling, out into the highway. Although he would be hit by at least twelve cars, three trucks, and a camel before he got to safety, the reader will be relieved to know that nobody dies in this chapter. They simply suffer from some very serious boo boos. Not that Marley cared. Now that the driver was out of the way, she could kick this thing into high gear and-

"Wait a minute, how do I work this thing?"

As the car started to drift and lose speed, Marley jabbed her claws into various buttons. She figured out how to make it go faster, but in the process she broke the wheel, carved through the airbag, and wrecked the controls enough that the windshield wipers wouldn't stop wiping and the radio was stuck playing _Running in the 90's._ And she was heading right into heavy traffic.

Frantically, she flailed her limbs around, her scythes digging into whatever they could reach in desperation to make it steer or break. A few more pieces of mangled machinery and a broken hand-break later, the mantis began to realize this was a bit of a lost cause. She needed a plan of escape, but how was she going to get anywhere without her wings working?

The next thing she heard was a sudden screech, followed by the sound of smashing metal and screaming motorists as Marley's car rammed its way into a pickup truck. Then a minivan. Then another pickup truck. Then a Segway. Marley's car-tastrophe had reached a mass of 6 wrecked vehicles before it tumbled off the side of the road, slamming its way into a tree.

"Penny, jump!"

The wolf creature didn't need Gumball's warning, but it was nice having him around anyways. She skillfully leaped over the oncoming out of control automobiles, nothing would deter her from cornering Marley and give her what was due. There was a loud smash as Marley's poor driving skills got a bunch of cars, her own hijacked vehicle included, rammed into the forest just off the highway. The force of the impact sent the bug flying through the air like a leaf on the wind. Her one good wing was able to steer her enough so that she didn't plow into the road again, and managed to direct herself onto the roof of the bus, digging a scythe into it to hold on.

The mantis was clinging for dear life and was clearly too exhausted to leap to another vehicle. Now was her chance. Penny ran next to the bus from the left side, preparing to jump on top of it and confront the beast.

"Gumball!" the wolf panted, "When I jump on the bus, I'm going to need you and Darwin to take refuge inside! Use the emergency exit located on the top!"

"What? You're crazy if you think I'm going to let you fight that thing alone!"

"Yeah! We're taking her on together!" said Darwin, who promptly handed Gumball his nerf gun. "And by we, I mean you and Gumball. I'm getting carpal tunnel from holding that thing."

Before either of them could respond, Darwin motioned at Banana Joe, who was inside the bus, to open the window, which the fish promptly jumped through with all the spectacle and skill of a paraplegic ballerina. "Try not to get eaten! I hear mantises like to bite off the heads of their lovers!"

Although Gumball gave the goldfish a good glare, Penny did not give any sort of response. Focused entirely on the task at hand, she briefly morphed into a burnt-orange kangaroo with antlers, successfully leaping onto the bus where she transformed back into her default state.

This proved to be a bad idea. Almost immediately after Penny stabilized herself on the speeding bus, the mantis swiftly crawled its way over to her position, intent on cutting her down with razor sharp claws. It was only thanks to a few well placed shots from Gumball that the bug was thrown off her balance, nearly sliding off the bus had she not dug both of her scythes into the roof.

Of course, neither Penny or Gumball were really fairing much better. As it turns out, the roof of a vehicle moving in excess of 60 miles per hour does not make for a stable surface. Penny was able to root herself in place with great effort, while Gumball resorted to clinging for dear life to the rear escape hatch. They could forget about making an offensive move against their adversary.

"Remind me," yelled Gumball, "why did you bring a bus along in the first place?"

"It seemed like a good idea at the time!"

"And come to think of it, how is Tina managing to keep up with us?"

They both looked over to the right at the dinosaur in question, who was still keeping her pace with the bus with no sign of slowing down. "What can I say? I work out regularly."

In the midst of this, Marley had managed to stabilize herself, and once again charged towards Penny, swiping her scythe appendages. The fairy was putting all her effort into staying on the bus, thus rendering her unable to transform, and Gumball was too busy clinging to aim his gun, presenting the bug with the perfect opportunity to cut down her enemy once and for all. She lunged at the golden deer, going in for the kill…

…and was cut off by a surprise fist to the jaw, coming from the front escape hatch.

"This is for the breadsticks, you piece of shit!"

To Marley's annoyance, she was once again cut off from her target, this time by that minotaur girl Jamie. The hot-tempered bull was handed a long metal pipe from someone inside the bus, and twirled it around in an intimidating manner. "Come at me bro! I'm going to shove this pipe into your thorax and out your ocular glands! Hiiiiyah!"

Instead, the mantis nonchalantly swiped her right scythe, cutting the pipe in half and sending Jamie flying off and crashing into Tina Rex, promptly throwing the dinosaur off balance and causing her to crash, along with everyone riding on her. The downed lizard would serve as a tremendous traffic hazard that was only amplified by the dark of night, causing a twelve car pileup before they were even out of view of Penny and Gumball.

"Well, that was highly improbable." the cat remarked.

"Enough!" The mantis stamped her clawed foot through the roof, making yet another hole. "The stain that is your bloodline ends tonight! Your life's end shall be the beginning of my ascension!

 _More likely, we'll all go flying off to some amusing injuries when the bus invariably brakes before the drop off_ thought Gumball. It may have been dark, but he'd been down this highway enough times to recognize where he was. And if memory served him correctly, they were about a minute away from

An orange fuzzy head popped up through the escape hatch. "Eh, I'd hate to interrupt your fight to the death, but could you guys be careful up there? You're putting a lot of holes in a perfectly good bus."

"Rocky!" yelled Penny, "now is really not the time nor the…"

A rather obvious fact suddenly dawned on the fairy, something quite distressing.

"Hey Rocky, can I ask you something?"

"Yeah, sure! What's up?" The muppet seemed rather oblivious to anything wrong.

"If you're up here, who's driving the bus?"

Before this question could be addressed with a half-assed answer, the bus suddenly began veering sharply to the right, as though it just now realized that nobody was controlling it. Though Marley, Penny, and Gumball were somehow able to hold on, the bus was spiraling out of control, and by the time Rocky had managed to get back on the steering wheel the vehicle had already shot its way over the barrier. Briefly airborne, the bus came back to earth violently as it tumbled its way down the steep rocky cliff that served as the edge of the highway and the beginning of Elmore's desert.

It was utter pandemonium. The bus was swirling around like an out of control washing machine, and the students may as well have been loose socks. It smashed its way down, never quite flying through the air but always bumping as it hit rock after rock, rolling into the parched abyss below.

* * *

Penny wasn't sure how long she was out, but she figured it couldn't have been longer than a couple of minutes or so. In the chaos of the bus crash, Penny found that she had somehow morphed into a large, puffy bear creature as a method of cushioning the fall, wrapped tightly around her boyfriend to give him extra protection. Granted, her back still hurt like hell, but as she shifted back to her default form, she could tell that at the very least, she was in better condition than most everyone else.

The area around her was a total wreck. Before its final descent, the bus must have somehow tossed everyone out, because all the students previously aboard were strewn about the barren terrain in various stages of injury and discomfort. Nothing particularly serious (at least, for Elmore), but certainly bad enough that they would be feeling it for the next couple of weeks, none more so than Marley, who looked utterly broken, a crippled bug in the midst of all the other kids. And to her side was…something interesting.

Laying about ten feet away from Marley was a smooth, white, hexagonal disk. In the center was a bluish circle that looked like it might be the source of some powerful light. Though she couldn't see it particularly clearly, it looked like the white outer areas had panels on them that were designed to fold out, though she didn't know for what.

Penny's…well, everything was too sore to make a move for it, but Gumball, who was well shielded from the previous impact, seemed to be able to right himself. He too saw the disk, and though he had no idea where it came from or what it was for, the azure feline decided that since it looked cool, he needed it in his bedroom. It was only fair. He casually walked over towards the device, ignorant that Marley herself had recovered from her injuries in that short span of time, and bent over to pick it up.

"GET BACK! MAKE ONE MORE MOVE TOWARDS THAT COMMUNICATOR AND I'LL KILL YOUR FRIEND!"

Everyone turned in the direction of Marley. In the space of time it took for Gumball to walk to the device, she had successfully managed to get herself back up and had grabbed the student nearest to her: Leslie the flower. Using one elbow to hold the plant against her body, she took her free scythe and brought it against his stem, just below the flower petal that served as his head.

"Aaaaagh! Please have mercy!" Leslie shrieked, "It'll take me weeks to regrow my beautiful face!"

"Well then, you'd better…wait, _regrow_?"

The flower rolled his eyes. "Well _duh,_ I'm a flower! What did you think would happen?"

Marley gave a few confused buzzes. "So…if I cut off your head, you wont die?"

Leslie pondered for a moment. "Well, it would be extremely painful, but no."

Realizing that this hostage situation clearly wasn't going anywhere, she threw the potted flower aside with a loud, irritated groan. With a leap and an impressive looking flip, Marley grabbed another student, holding them in much the same position.

"Let's try this again…get any closer to that communicator, and I'll kill HIM!"

Unlike with the previous case, none of the kids seemed particularly concerned, least of all Gumball. "Dude, that's Anton."

"Yes, and?"

"And," said Carmen, "he's literally a piece of toast. He dies like, three times a week on average."

Though she lacked her previous facial expressions, Marley could still hang her jaw open to indicate utter shock. "Then…h-how is he-"

"Mommy and daddy put a new piece of bread in the toaster every time I die, and then out I come!" Anton seemed to be taking all of this in stride, considering he was being held at blade-point.

"AAAAAGH! I'VE HAD IT WITH THIS STUPID PLACE!" Marley threw Anton to the side and began angrily stamping her legs into the dirt. "NOTHING HERE MAKES ANY SENSE! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE!?"

"What's wrong with us?" asked Gumball. "I'll have you know that despite our weirdness, we're perfectly functional and happy the way we are. At least none of us here are murderous lunatics!" He picked up the hexagonal disk, apparently a communication device. "This thing's clearly important to you, am I right? What does it do?"

Marley growled. "It's a way for me to communicate with Father, when I want to report on my progress. B-but he hates it when I do that, and he certainly wont talk to you!"

"Well then," Gumball held the disk up to the air. "I think it's high time we have a chat with this father of yours. He's clearly the source of your problems, and by proxy our problems. And we're going to do something about it one way or another!"

"That'll be the day!" In a flash, Marley bounded into Gumball and tackled him to the ground, attempting to use her clawed legs to tear the communicator from his paws. "Give it back right now!"

The blue cat continued to hold on tightly. "You…need…help!" he strained, clutching the precious macguffin with all his might. "How…bad…can this dad of yours…be?

Nobody was quite sure whether it was Marley or Gumball, but in the struggle somebody pressed something on the communicator that caused it to vibrate and make a little _ding!_ noise, causing the two of them to drop it in shock. As everyone gathered around, the black mantis repeatedly poked at the disk in a vain attempt at finding an off switch, but it was clearly too late. The panels unfolded, revealing little metal limbs that connected back against the bluish centerpiece, which began to light up and get brighter and brighter.

"Haha…you idiots…" Marley buzzed fearfully as the device began humming louder, like something was rotating inside of it. "You want to know how bad he is? You're about to find out. Don't say I didn't warn you…"


	12. In Flagrenti Delecto

Chapter 12: In Flagrenti Delecto

Everyone was gathered around in a circle, their eyes transfixed on the communicator. As the central blue mass continued spinning, a powerful electrical force shot into it from the metal legs, somehow causing it to float a good two feet above the ground. For a moment, it remained that way, humming, rotating, as though the device was loading up.

Suddenly, a bluish beam of energy shot from the center of the disk, hitting everyone's vision like a spotlight at point blank range. With the exception of Marley, every student instinctively winced in pain and covered their eyes, the bright blue glow visible through their eyelids. Although the light died down quick enough for folks to open their eyes, they were now left disoriented and confused by the sudden return of darkness. And when they adjusted after a few moments or so, the sight before them was so jarring that some thought their eyes were damaged.

The holographic projection that came from the communicator, extending upwards about fifty feet or so, was almost indescribable. To anyone's best guess, it simply appeared to display a loose web of an unidentified fleshy substance, extending from all sides. Most of the strings of flesh converged on the central mass, a large, pulsing sphere made of the same substance.

As for the central mass, nobody could quite say. It was too round to really be a brain, and its pulsing was too erratic for it to be a heart. The mass seemed to be composed of thinner material than the rest of the "meat web" connecting to it, and as it pulsed and writhed in its bluish glow on could almost make out a silhouette of an unknown creature within.

This construct, however, was short lived. Seemingly aware that it was being observed, the web immediately began to shift, some cutting off from whatever wall they were attached to and morphing into tendrils. Inside the fleshy mass in the center, another glow could briefly be seen, followed by intense writhing as the organ rearranged itself. Breaking from the webbings that remained attached to the wall, the central mass parted down the center, opening up to reveal a single pulsing eyeball, its pupil a thin black slit against the omnipresent blueness.

Finished transforming, the creature now resembled an eye severed from its socket, with tendrils in the back resembling the optic nerves, stretching back into an unseen mass. Dangling from its lower lid were around five smaller tentacles, presumably for use as limbs. Unblinking and soulless, it immediately shifted its gaze over to Marley, who by this point was practically trembling, and though it made no expressions, the others could feel the same level of hatred emanating that Banana Joe felt the first time he encountered this monster. And all that hate was directed towards the broken mantis below.

"You…I thought I made myself clear last time."

It spoke telepathically, in a voice much deeper than Joe remembered, fitting for a creature of such size and grotesque composition. Yet its tone remained unchanged, its deep seated loathing all too apparent.

"W-wait!" Marley stammered weakly, "I can explain-"

"Did your memory perhaps degrade between now and our last conversation?" The entity didn't even give Marley a moment's worth of time to answer. "Who am I kidding, it probably did. But I hope at least you're well aware enough of the consequences of disobeying me."

"Dad, please! It's not what you-"

"Oh stop whining already." The entity spoke with a tranquil fury as its frontal tentacles began sparking with energy. "Actually, you know what, go ahead. Tell me why I shouldn't leave you writhing in agony. I'm sure whatever excuse you come up with, it will at least give me a hearty chuckle."

"I'm not the one who contacted you!"

The tentacles immediately lost their spark and drooped down to a more stationary position. As if surprised, the entity shifted its gaze off of Marley, scanning around to its right, then quickly to the left. It seemed this quick check was all it needed, for the solitary eyeball bore down once again on the insect below.

"So it would seem. And how, exactly, did these scraps of cannon fodder manage to activate the holo-projector?"

"Umm…" Marley bit into her scythes out of nervousness. "They tricked me! Gumball sent me a love letter and it turned out to be a lie so they could kill me! I killed scores of their number, but the enemy was just too numerous, and they beat me back here!"

"What are you talking about?" said Gumball. "We weren't trying to kill you, and you-"

"Righteo then, let me get this straight." the entity interrupted, "You've not only blown your cover, but you managed to get tricked and routed by lifeforms which any Karthuun worth their salt would have been able to slaughter effortlessly. Am I getting this correctly?"

Marley froze on the spot, unable to get a word out. Not that her "dad" really gave her much time.

"I'm…actually amazed. Somehow, you've managed to reach levels of failure that I once thought were impossible. Literally the ONLY thing you needed to do was breed with that underage specimen to your left, and yet that utterly mundane task has lead to you getting nearly killed."

Penny clenched her fist. "Wait, so you're the one responsible for Marley harassing Gumball! What's the big idea, forcing your daughter to seduce a guy who already has a girlfriend?"

The abomination didn't respond.

"Hey, I'm talking to you!" The fairy decided to take a more aggressive approach to get the tentacled eyeball's attention, flying right in front of its field of view. "Are you going to listen to me?"

This time, the eyeball responded. Not with words, but with a flash of its iris and a horrific, bone chilling glare that drained any emotion from Penny that wasn't absolute terror. Every muscle in her body suddenly froze up, and the girl immediately plummeted like a stone, smacking into the arid earth below.

"Penny!" Gumball, Darwin, and Carmen ran to help her. The deer fairy seemed to have recovered from the sudden paralysis, and as her friends aided her up, the entity turned its attention back towards its "daughter".

"Ah yes, it seems you've brought the descendent here as well. Be a dear and tell that _thing_ that the next time it deigns fit to interrupt me, it will never fly again." A soft rumbling could be heard coming from the entity, as though it were chuckling. "Though the fact that your not carrying its head on a pike by now is testament to your failure."

"I tried!" the bug pleaded. "But she's surprisingly resilient! I mean, she IS a Karthuun after all, and-"

"No, she is NOT Karthuun." The entity's voice became slightly louder, clearly trying to mask its anger. "That thing is a descendent of those unfit to join our ranks. She, along with all her friends, should be easy prey for someone not utterly mentally deficient. Oh wait, I almost forgot who I was talking to."

"Excuse me sir!" said Alan, a safe distance back to avoid the entity's powers. "But that is no way to treat anyone, let alone your own child!"

The monstrosity did not even acknowledge him with a response. Marley, however, would not let a good point pass up that easily. "What he said! You're supposedly my parent, but from what I've heard from this planet, parents are supposed to treat their children with unconditional love! You haven't even given me a means to keep myself from starving to death!"

"Oh I'm sorry, but do you see any of these future food scraps going into space? I thought not. You should be thankful I even have a condition where you can earn my love."

Driven by rage against her parent, Marley buzzed up into the air, putting herself at eye level with the giant eyeball. "And another thing! That task of yours has nearly gotten me killed! Multiple times! And I don't even know why I'm doing it, because you refuse to tell me!"

"Yeah, uh, I too am kinda curious why you're forcing your daughter to try to molest me." said Gumball, stepping towards the entity. "What's the point in all of that?!"

Penny quickly shushed him, in hopes that he would avoid drawing its attention. Unlike previous times it was addressed, however, the entity suddenly turned to face directly at the person who had just addressed it.

"Oh, I'd _bet_ you'd like to know, wouldn't you?" Though it didn't have a mouth, nor any real kind of face, Gumball got the feeling that this creature was grinning wickedly at him. His knees instinctively buckled, which was probably the exact reaction the entity was looking for.

It turned its attention back towards Marley, who was still hovering in the air. "Well then, since you deem yourself so high and mighty, I'll let you in on a little secret. Do you know just how much was at stake with your assignment? Do you have any idea just how much is lost by your complete and utter, total failure?"

"Alright, what?"

"Absolutely nothing."

Silence hung over the air, as though the world itself were trying to process this information. Needless to say, everyone was stunned. A few jaws even dropped open, this revelation completely shattering whatever expectations they held.

"W-what do you mean?" stuttered Marley, who was praying she misheard something.

"Absolutely nothing, that's right. There was nothing at stake here whatsoever."

"B-b-but then-"

"You still don't get it, do you?" The entity raised its frontal tendrils, sparking with energy again. "Let me make this simple for you. There was no point. Nothing would have been gained had you succeeded in getting that specimen to breed with you, and there are absolutely no consequences to your failure. Your task is MEANINGLESS."

Marley gripped her head in dismay, which amounted to japing her scythes against her scalp. This was all too much for her, she couldn't even think of a response.

"If her task was meaningless," asked Penny, "why the hell did you send her on it? She could have gotten herself killed!"

"That was precisely the point" said the entity nonchalantly. "This glorified hunt for a nonexistent treasure was constructed as a convenient way of killing this worthless specimen in a way most suited to her crimes against me."

The kids reacted with shock and anger to this blatant callousness. Although they were no fans of Marley, this sort of treatment of her was far too cruel for someone like her to deserve. " _Logical error."_ chirped Bobert, who's servers were nearly overheating trying to think of a logical explanation. " _If you had wished to kill your daughter, my calculations estimate that it would have been far more efficient to kill her immediately on the spot, rather than construct an elaborate ruse. You have the capabilities to do so."_

The giant eyeball turned to face the robot. "Hmm, a rudimentary AI. How interesting. Your species has yet to master travel between the stars, but you have already put out what many civilizations actively refuse to do." The entity rumbled a bit, sort of like a snort. "A shame it had to be wasted on this ridiculous piece of scrap metal."

"Answer the question, jerkface!" yelled Gumball. "What was the purpose of dragging out her death like this?"

Gumball immediately regretted speaking, for he once again found the eyeball of the entity bearing down on him, paralyzed beneath its glare. "I would suggest that you know your place, vermin. Then again, who am I kidding, it's not like you're going to live long enough to take my advice." It chuckled to itself again, clearly amused by its own jokes. "But as I said before, this punishment was created out of necessity for the magnitude of her offenses against me."

"And what would that be?" growled Penny.

"She made me waste my valuable time having to acknowledge her feeble existence, she had the audacity to come into being as a weak, pathetic excuse for a Karthuun, and most importantly, for not immediately recognizing these glaring flaws and killing herself as soon as she was spawned."

"N-no…t-that doesn't…" Marley, by this point on the verge of a total mental breakdown.

"Oh, I almost forgot." The entity swerved its way back to face its cringing, broken daughter. "For the record, in case you were wondering, no. You never had a chance of earning my love. Why would I love something so worthless that it couldn't even be consumed for nourishment? No, you are a disgusting piece of excrement that I loathe to think is even related to our great species."

Marley screeched in horror and despair, jabbing her blades deep beneath her exoskeleton in a desperate attempt at masking the emotional pain she felt at being abandoned by the one person she thought she could trust. Satisfied that the insect was suffering an existential crisis, the eyeball retracted itself, a central mass of meat coalescing around it as though it were ready to rest.

"My work here is completed, more or less." It looked around at some of the students, most of whom were trembling with rage. "Hmm, are you perhaps, upset? Feel free to take it out on her. I may have not been around to observe her pathetic attempts at romance, but I'm sure whatever it did it must have been traumatic for some of you."

It hung motionless, waiting for someone to take up its offer and finish off Marley. As the webs of meat reformed, it considered that perhaps maybe this crowd of juveniles didn't hear him, or were perhaps too busy coming up with an elaborate method of killing. Either way, he was about to offer some words of encouragement, when he noticed a figure beginning to advance towards her. That unmistakable bright blue cat.

Perfect. Out of all the people Marley probably harmed, the target of her affections had probably suffered the most damage. And thus the most brutal form of retaliation was to be expected. Had it been equipped with a mouth, it probably would have looked quite smug. It observed eagerly as the feline made its way over to Marley, stopped right over her…

…and extended his arm towards her.

Marley looked up, pausing in her self harm to tilt her head in confusion. "What are you…"

"I'm helping you up, duh. Put out your…appendage I guess, and I'll take it in my hand and lift you off the ground. It's a thing we do here."

The bug tilted her head the other way, reluctant to put her arm out. "B-b-but…why? Aren't you going to kill me?"

Gumball raised an eyebrow. "No? Why would I do that?"

The bug curled back up again. "Didn't you listen to Father? I'm so worthless, he felt the need to create an elaborate ruse so that I'd slowly starve to death or otherwise die painfully. Go ahead and kill me already."

"With all due respect, that's a load of bullshit." The feline held out his hand closer.

"But…after all I did…"

Gumball kneeled down, his soft gaze meeting the damaged eyes of the mantis. "Yeah, you don't need to remind me. You did a lot of strange, destructive things. We cant forget that, not entirely. But we can forgive you. The reason you behave the way you did…it's because of him." He pointed accusingly towards the entity. "That monster that calls itself your father drove you insane with his dickery, put you on an impossible quest, and openly admits that he doesn't care for you at all. You have no reason to listen to what he has to say!"

"He's right," said Darwin, who had also walked over to Marley, "you don't need him. He may have gotten you to do awful things, but that doesn't mean we cant help you!"

"We'll help you get back on your feet, show you how our world works, keep you from starving!" said Carmen, walking over with Alan by her side.

"That's what love is" added the balloon. "Compassion isn't something that you hand out selectively, and it especially isn't something you use to string someone along. It's a thing that's unconditional."

Marley's wings buzzed again, trying to take in what she was seeing. She had done so much to these poor kids. She had quarreled with them, attacked them, creeped them out, and outright attempted to ruin a relationship. Yet despite that, they still cared. This was contrary to pretty much everything her Father taught her about how the universe works.

The blue cat interrupted her train of thought. "And that applies to all of us. Every single classmate that you see around here is willing to help you recover." He paused, "To the best of our limited ability, anyways."

Smiling warmly, Gumball once again stretched out his hand towards Marley. The mantis deliberated for a few moments, which seemed like eternity considering all the tension in the air. Slowly, tentatively, she reached out with her left scythe, carefully placing it on its side so not to cut Gumball's palm. For the first time, she was finally receiving…what was it called? Compassion. She was receiving compassion from the boy she loved. As she raised on uncertain legs, she promised herself, for his sake, to make an effort in turning over a new leaf. Gumball may not love her like he loved Penny, but he now counted her as a friend, and that…that was comforting.

 _SNAP!_ Before anyone could even process it, Marley's head rotated a full 180 degrees, accompanied by a sickening, wet crunch. The life immediately snuffed out of the poor, broken creature, it collapsed back to the ground, her wings still twitching with post mortem spasms.

"Adorable." Everyone redirected their attention towards the eyeball, who was holding up a single tentacle charged with energy. "But a pointless, pathetic gesture. Your…compassion…only served to blind her, in her final moments. It has changed nothing."

Everyone was utterly horrified. If they weren't frozen with fear, they were trying their best to discreetly back away or shrink down, to avoid attracting this thing's attention. Even Penny's terror got the better of her, morphing her into a timid, dark gray rabbit.

Gumball, however, simply dropped back to his knees. This was too sudden for him to cry, to be angry, to even feel fear. No, this felt like a horrific dream, that Marley would be there alive and well if he just shook himself out of it. "H-how…could you-"

"Oh, that's easy" explained the entity. "My neural network is advanced enough to enable a direct telepathic link to my spawn's mind, and with some effort, their body. Pity that she had to die so quickly though."

"That's not what I meant you utter bastard!" Common sense be damned, Gumball just saw someone die in front of him. Someone he cared about! Anger, no, a desire for vengeance flowed through him as he faced the beast. "She cared about you! Trusted you! Even after all you did to her she wanted to please you! She was willing to die to gain your love! And you just killed her like that!"

"Well, that was her mistake. That worthless scum didn't have the slightest ounce of sense, otherwise she might have rebelled against me. Really now, she's the one at fault here."

"You…you're horrible! Evil!" screamed Darwin. "How could you possibly try to justify what you did?"

"I need no higher justification" it answered, its tone still as calm as ever. "The fact that I am able to exact the full extent of my will upon my offspring is justification in and of itself that I should do it."

"What kind of sick, twisted logic is that!?" said Gumball, staring directly up at that monstrous, pulsing eyeball, tears running down his cheeks.

"The kind of logic that has led our people to absorb countless biomass, raze innumerable planets to their mantles, and destroy all who stand in our way. Their lives end so that we may become greater. It is a worthy cause. Which reminds me…"

The eyeball retracted back into the center, the fleshy webs spinning around it like a cocoon, turning it into a big blog of indiscriminate meat. Not even a moment after it condensed, however, did the central mass begin writhing and squirming, in a very different way than from before, like something was clawing its way out.

A couple moments later, the central mass burst open like an egg, dropping a completely different, but still just as horrific creature to the floor. It held the same bluish hue as its previous form, but was significantly more animalistic in appearance. Four pairs of pitch black eyes, deadly fangs, and fine hairs sprawled over the otherwise smooth exoskeleton, the entity had taken on the appearance similar to that of a giant tarantula. Where it differed, other than size, were the legs. Nobody could quite tell how many, but there were way more than eight of them, many disjointed and uneven producing an even more uncanny look, if that was possible. As far as they could tell, it had just enough extra legs to look positively grotesque. Cackling with its mandibles to create a horrific cacophony, it turned towards the fairy, still stuck in bunny form, with hostile intent.

"Penny Fitzgerald, is that right? Your kind never failed to impress me with how weak you are, but it seems this generation has outdone itself."

Confronted with this huge holographic arachnoid, all Penny could do was squeak meekly.

"Oh yes, I know about you." The entity rubbed its forelegs together. "More importantly, I know about your ancestors. Their treachery against their fellow Karthuun. The crimes against our glory…" It paused briefly. "When I arrive here, and I will, I will make sure that you die last, and drag out your suffering for as long as possible. You will pay for the sins of your ancestors."

"W-what are you talking about?" the bunny managed to squeak.

"There will be plenty of time for explaining. At the moment, however, I have things to do. It happens that I was in the middle of feeding when you so foolishly decided to contact me. But this is merely the beginning. Know that I am SWARM, the embodiment of your retribution, the vanguard of your destruction. And know that I will kill everyone you know and love."

The giant spider paused again, reveling in the fear emanating not just from Penny, but from everyone else around her. It was a wonderful feeling.

"No, you wont!" Once again, that stupid blue cat felt the need to assert himself. Eyes dried of tears, Gumball stood between Penny and the arachnoid menace, which was no mean feat considering his phobia of spiders. "You're not killing anybody here! I wont let you!"

"A touching, if hackneyed sentiment," it clicked its jaws, "but how exactly do you expect to do that?"

The cat shrugged. "I dunno man, I was just making a bold statement. Like they do in the movies. I've never actually seen people follow up on them with a strategic plan."

His response was met with a cruel, vindictive laugh. "Perhaps this is a good of a time as any to learn that fiction is fiction for a reason. Reflect on this in your final moments."

"Final moments? Wha?"

"I'm glad you asked." It gestured over towards Marley's corpse. "For you see, during my travels, assimilating worthy life and exterminating the rest, I came a cross a species that happened to be quite versed in necromancy. Cant be bothered to remember their names though. Their abilities are now mine. Combined with my neural link towards Marley, well…"

All turned towards the expired mantis body as it began to slowly rise in the air. Contorting and bulging to impossible levels, the cadaver suddenly erupted in a burst of black goo. From the thick black tar, a figure emerged. Mothlike in appearance, save for large pincers, it was far bigger than it had any right to be, considering where it hatched from. This enormous moth creature, still dripping with tar and sludge, was almost the size of SWARM's hologram.

The moth shook off the gunk, and nearly blinded everyone with its brilliant, white-gold body, completely smooth and shining like a second sun. A second, moth-shaped sun.

"Okay, that tears it!" yelped Banana Joe. "I'm outta here! I came for an intervention, not to get turned into bug mush!" The banana quickly took off up the hill, the other students following close behind.

That didn't do them much good. The insectoid monstrosity immediately flew after the fleeing students, making a dash towards Gumball. It landed in the center of the running crowd, immediately pinning down Bobert and Leslie. It ignored them, however, in favor of the aforementioned blue cat, who it began incessantly snapping at with its jaws.

"Hmm, seems my daughter had a use after all." SWARM didn't address this to anyone in particular, but it came out regardless for everyone to hear. "Much as I'd hate to miss this spectacle, I've got a feast to get to. Try not to get entirely killed, I want at least some of you remaining for when I show up."

With that, the holo-projector abruptly shut off, leaving the desert in darkness save for the luminous glow of the monstrous insect hellbent on killing everything in sight.

The struggle against the moth was, to put it lightly, not going very well. Gumball was able to employ his cat reflexes to dodge the monster's mandibles, legs, and stinger, but that did little good for everyone else caught in the crossfire. Carrie tried and failed at possessing the beast, and a sudden supersonic blast left her diffuse and disoriented. Molly the sauropod was probably the only person of notable size to take it on, but a grazing stinger to the leg quickly felled her. Most everyone else was just trying desperately to get as far away as possible as the beast continued its pursuit.

Penny was the only one really putting up much of a fight. The need to defend her boyfriend overriding her fear once again, she had shifted into the form of a formidable dragon. Ramming into the bug as it attempted another divebomb on Gumball, Penny briefly engaged in an aerial struggle with the giant moth, using well placed blasts of fire to and swipes of her tail to keep that thing in the air and away from Gumball.

Although valiant, Penny's battle ended abruptly when she was jabbed directly in the tail with a venomous stinger. The pain and paralysis already coursing through her body, it took all of her effort to land without crashing, immediately morphing back into her default form. With the fairy out of commission, and everyone else routed and scattered, the monster that came from Marley found that the path to Gumball was wide open. It prepared to make a divebomb…

As for what happened next, nobody could quite explain. Perhaps it was divine intervention, for a certain definition of divine at least. Perhaps Elmore itself, always suspected of being a Genus Loci for its odd tendencies, had decided to step in. Or perhaps some force in the universe simply wanted to make things more exciting.

Whatever the case, as the moth prepared to attack Gumball, it was startled by a jarring rumbling in the sky, as though the air was having a spontaneous earthquake. All around the creature and in the general area, tears began ripping open, with some kind of static on the other side. Though the moth was still incredibly confused, Gumball recognized that background all too well. He had been there himself twice.

He quickly bolted away from the dimensional tears forming around him. The giant moth, however, made another dive at its target, doing its best to avoid the cracks in space from the static dimension.

The action was once again cut off, this time by a loud, unearthly roar. The moth barely had enough time to turn around before it found itself in a stranglehold by a massive, serpentine figure. Nobody could tell what it was. It was so dark that it blended in with the night, and seemed to actively resist the moth's illumination. The only thing that could be discerned were glowing, purple eyes.

The mysterious, serpentine figure from the static void bit down on the moth. Screaming, the insect retaliated with a well placed stinger shot, causing both entities to tumble to earth in a maelstrom of light and shadow. Although the moth made one more desperate effort to steer its way towards Gumball, its assailant's eyes flashed, and a massive rip in space and time appeared just as it was about to make contact. Gumball, the moth, and the dimensional horror went tumbling through the tear, into that all too familiar dimension that lay within the static between stories, where bad ideas go to die. The realm of The Void.


	13. The Dragon of the Void

Chapter 13: The Dragon of the Void

 **A/N: The last thing you'd want in your Gumball fanfic is someone's foot fungus, but as it turns out, that might be what you get**

Crackling

The first sound Gumball heard as he came to was the incessant crackling of static. Incessant white noise permeating the background, ringing in his ears. Considering that this was the place entirely made up of "the background", it wasn't much of a surprise, but it was still grating on his senses.

He righted himself with some effort. Despite falling through a spacetime portal and getting smacked by not one, but two eldritch entities, Gumball seemed relatively okay aside from some scrapes and bruises.

Suddenly remembering the conflict that lead him here, his eyes darted around, searching for the monsters. The moth was found first; it happened to be uncomfortably close to Gumball, laying on its side about 20 feet away. While clearly not dead, its erratic twitching and dimmed glow indicated that it had clearly taken a good amount of damage from smacking into the landscape.

Speaking of landscape, it just occurred to the cat to take in his surroundings. A quick panorama showed that this dimension was just as strange as last time he was thrust into it. The static didn't seem to be merely background, but made up the very air of the dimension, manifesting in a black and white fizzing fog that grew thicker with distance, completely blocking any line of sight at a distance that Gumball wanted to say was half a mile. Between him and the horizon he could see random chunks of lifeless earth floating about, some affected by the downward pull of gravity while other pieces clearly had no regard for such laws.

On every large rock, clustered haphazardly, were the only inhabitants of the Void: bad ideas. Here there was the script for a cartoon reboot, there was a toxic variant of silly putty, over there was that gaudy orange house Gumball could have sworn had been in his neighborhood a few weeks back. Everything deemed a "bad idea", up to and including people, was somehow swallowed in here by some sort of mysterious force.

A few chunks, devoid of material, were orbiting another object altogether; a strange, spherical amalgamation of what was probably water but seemed impossibly blue. It couldn't have been more than the size of a house, and yet nothing that entered it came out the other side. At least, none of the pieces of earth Gumball observed falling into it ever came back out.

 _SCREEEEEEE!_

The moth's unearthly screech reminded Gumball of exactly what he was too close to. He bolted towards the left, down a path that seemed long and free of hazards. As he looked back, he caught a brief glimpse of the monstrosity, scuttling on the ground like a cockroach after him.

The only warning he had that he had run out of ground to run on was the brief sensation of his stomach riding up his chest. Too late, he tried in vein to turn himself around, flailing his legs in a running motion before plummeting screaming into the void.

 _Oh no, not again!_ the cat thought to himself as he plunged into the endless, swirling darkness below. He closed his eyes, bracing himself for his final decent into nothingness, but opened him back up again as he began to feel himself falling in another direction entirely. As he smacked into the ground below/above, Gumball realized that he had essentially just fallen in a circle and ended up on the opposite side of the rock he was on earlier.

"Yep, this is the Void alright."

His moments respite was rudely interrupted by another loud screech. The moth monster, ever desperate to get its prey, dived off the ledge on the other side of the rocky mass, attempting to ride the same gravity stream. Instead, it continued falling. The creature flailed around in confusion for a few seconds, and almost managed to stabilize itself, when it got caught in the orbit of another mass and smacked into that.

Well, if it was any consolation to Gumball, at least his pursuer seemed to be having as much trouble navigating this world as he was. Resolving to look straight ahead this time around, the cat darted ahead to put more distance between himself and the moth. With a combination of surprisingly impressive athleticism and fortuitous gravity fluctuations, he was able to leap over to another rocky mass, landing right next to a copy of Metroid Other M.

Although rather impressed with himself, this sentiment was not shared by the glowing, eldritch moth. Gumball turned around as he heard another screech, seeing the giant flyer coming straight for him, with no gravity wells or random blocks of earth to slow it down. As if it wasn't horrific-looking enough, the beast's pincers had morphed into about a dozen long tendrils, each coated with jagged blades made out of hard light.

He barely even had time to run before he felt a searing pain on his back as the moth crashed into him, its stinger striking into the ground inches from Gumball's leg. The rock they were on almost immediately started to rot from the point of impact, hissing and bubbling a sickly dark green. Despite the burning he felt on his backside, Gumball was able to skid his way out from underneath the moth as the mass dissolved, sending both of them falling into orbit around a giant disco ball.

Utilizing his claws for once, he gripped onto the sparkling sphere to stop his orbit. It worked, but the sudden shift in local gravity caused him to smack into the surface of the ball. This did not leave him any safer from the moth. Although still in orbit, the giant insect managed to get close enough to scrape across Gumball's face with one of its tendrils.

The pain from this was even worse. It was scorching hot, like the rest of the moth's body, with the added sensation of being hit by thousands of tiny knives. His skin tore apart in an upwards diagonal as the tentacle slashed him along his left cheek, and again as it grazed by the side of his head, before the moth was thrown out of range due to contact with another rocky body.

Another brief rest from the onslaught, although it was anything but pleasant. The intense tingling pain on his face, like someone stabbed him with a bunch of pins and then set them on fire, was perhaps the worst he'd ever felt in his life. He barely even noticed the worryingly large amount of blood that was dripping from his face and beginning to pool on the ground. Everything just hurt so bad. All he could do was attempt to crawl away.

Another, horrible screech as the moth broke free from the other rock's grasp, and was now poised to strike Gumball. As the monster closed in, all he could do was shut his eyes, his mind flashing with thoughts of his family and loved ones. He silently prayed that his death would at least be quick.

Just as it was about to make contact, the moth was once again smacked away from its target, followed by a deafening roar that seemed to resonate with the very static. Righting himself, the cat saw that his assailant was now back in a struggle against the creature that had thrown them into the Void in the first place. He couldn't get a clear picture of the action, it was all moving too fast and he was feeling really light-headed, but the great monster that called this place home seemed to have the moth wrapped in its lower body, crushing the life out of it despite its desperate flailing. The moth's tendrils converged on the entity's head with seemingly enough force to rip it apart, and though it tore off nearly a third of its head area, the mysterious adversary barely noticed at all. Within seconds, it regenerated this mass and continued constricting the moth.

Satisfied that it had squeezed the burning moth into submission, the great dragon, still wreathed in darkness, smacked the bug with its immense tail. The bug went slamming straight into another rocky mass featuring brutalist architecture, with the dragon following close after.

As the great beasts continued their fight, the pain in Gumball's face subsided enough that he could think clearly again. He stood up fully, awkwardly leaping over to a giant brick. Pain once again shot up his back, and thus was unable to land smoothly, instead splatting against the object.

"Bad…idea…" he said to himself. Even talking was kinda painful, considering it moved the injured cheek and all that. At least here, he could observe the battle between behemoths from a relatively safe vantage point.

Now that he was stable, he could get a slightly clearer image of this monster from the Void. At least, as clear as one can get when the air is made of static and your subject is thrashing about in combat. It was vaguely draconic in appearance, the wings and snakelike body already gave that away. Multiple tendrils spawned either from its chest or from random portals it summoned to strike its opponent, who at this point was just trying to escape with its life.

Beyond that, Gumball still couldn't make much out. Just as it was earlier, the dragon was wreathed in formless darkness. Actually, it wasn't "wreathed" so much as "made up of" darkness. As the struggle against its golden-white enemy continued, it proved able to morph its own form pretty much at will to dodge attacks. A stinger to the chest, only to find that the chest was suddenly no longer there, just a gaping hole that quickly reformed. A blow to the head, only the head split in half to avoid it. Whatever this creature was, it had complete control over every aspect of its body.

These attributes, as well as its tremendous size, meant that this battle was pretty one-sided. This dragon of noir was already a forced to be reckoned with on earth, for the brief time he saw it. But in this world, there were no limits to its powers. It could warp the landscape, generate limbs, change consistency, and even access extradimensional realms.

In this world, it may as well have been a God.

The constricting grasp slightly loosened, the moth was able to pull its way out. But that did it little good. It barely even got to flapping its wings before getting slammed into the ground by the dragon's thick tail. A second later, it struck again. So great was the force that the second time it used its tail, the large rock they were fighting on utterly disintegrated. The various pieces were sent tumbling down into the depths of the Void, along with the golden moth.

Battered, but not broken, the dragon's insectoid adversary steadied itself with some effort. Dodging other pieces of falling rock, its tentacles flared out, charging with energy. Judging by how the rest of its body began rabidly fading, it was clear that it was preparing a final, desperate attack.

Gumball shielded his eyes as a beam brighter than the sun shot from the creature's mouth. Brilliant as it was deadly, the blast scorched the very air around it. The dragon of the Void, however, was prepared for this. Briefly gaining purple streaks as it charged up, a massive portal opened up directly in front of it. From there, a beam of black and purple shot out, equal in intensity of darkness as the moth's beam of lightness.

The two titanic bursts of opposing pure energy collided. For a brief period, the attackers were at a stalemate, the beams meeting roughly halfway. Where light and shadow met, bursts of colors that Gumball had never seen before and could probably never describe shot out. Unlike the dragon, the moth had a finite energy source. Within a few moments, the beam of darkness began pushing back fast. The moth's body darkened to a dull yellow as it reached into the depths of itself, pulling the last of its energy to attempt to turn the tide.

It was a futile gesture. The last dredges of the moth's power did hardly anything to slow the advance of the dragon's attack. The beam of pure light flickered a couple times, suddenly shutting off altogether. With no more power, and no time to dodge, the dulled moth took a direct hit. Enveloped by extradimensional powers, the bug was utterly destroyed. With one last dying, horrific screech, Gumball watched as orange cracks rapidly spread on the moth. It shattered into dozens of burnt yellow pieces, all of which plunged into the depths of the Void for the final time.

The battle was over. This dragon, strange deus ex machina that it seemed, proved itself to be the master of its domain. It did not revel in its triumph, nor give off a show of dominance. As it watched the last pieces of its adversary disappear into the static, it calmly generated another portal and disappeared inside it.

Only now, with the epic duel between giants over, did Gumball remember his injuries. The massive gash on his face was still bleeding, and as he felt around his body, he realized he had a similar wound on his shoulder. He felt like an utter idiot for missing that, even if it was due to the pain of that wound being masked by his burnt back. With a grunt of pain, he turned himself around, in an attempt to at least get back on the disco ball so he could lie down.

As soon as he turned, however, he saw something that made his hairs stick up like spikes.

Whether by extreme stealth, or a completely bundled spot check roll, the dragon now filled his vision. It was close enough that Gumball could make out little details, like the purplish veins that ran up the creature's belly. Despite this, it didn't seem to really have a belly, nor skin that the cat could identify. Up close, the beast's body could be best described as in a constant state of flux, never quite solid, in the manner of a dark cloud. That is, if said dark cloud took the form of a demonic serpent with wings.

Yet as its deep, purple eyes stared down at him, Gumball didn't feel that threatened. As strange as it was, there was something almost…calming about the dragon's presence. There was no hostility in its gaze, and it made no move to attack. Were it not for his wounds, he would have felt at peace.

 _Your time…has not come…_

By this point, Gumball couldn't tell if he was hallucinating or not. Regardless, the voice of the dragon, though deep and reverberating, was at the same time peaceful. It was not friendly, nor was it hateful, it simply was.

"W-what?" he choked out

 _Return_

The last thing Gumball saw before fading into unconsciousness was the entity getting further and further away, as he fell down into a tunnel of static.

* * *

"Guys, guys! I think he's waking up!"

As he opened his eyes and his vision unblurred, Gumball saw that he was in a hospital bed, his view largely blocked by the concerned yet cautiously happy faces of Penny and Darwin. The IV tube in his arm jiggled a little as he tried to sit up, and immediately fell back down thanks to a surge of pain.

"What…what happened to me?"

"Oh my god, he's okay!" This elated voice came from Nicole Watterson, who had just entered the room with her husband and Anais. "On the one hand, I should scold you for missing curfew, attempting to stage an intervention without any experience, and almost getting killed. But on the other hand, I'm just so happy you're okay!"

"I mean, geez," said Anais, "second degree burns? Lacerations? What the hell happened out there?"

"When you vanished into that portal…I know it was only for a few minutes in retrospect, but I thought I'd lost you. Even then…I held on to hope, I stayed there, waiting for you. And in the end, you tumbled right into my arms." Penny's eyes were watering from sheer joy, and would have squeezed her boyfriend were it not for his injuries.

"Actually," added Darwin, "if I recall, you looked like some kind of wolf, so you didn't really have arms. Also, he kinda tumbled onto your back and you wigged out at first and nearly kicked him." A glare from Penny prompted him to stop. "Anyways, you have to tell us everything!"

"Tell you…what?"

"How you beat those monsters, duh! What kind of mad karate skills did you use to kill them and escape the Void?"

"Actually…it wasn't really like that at all." Gumball paused momentarily to collect his memories, everything was still a bit hazy. That…black monster that came from the Void, whatever it is, it spent all its time fighting that moth. Call me crazy…but I think it was defending me."

"Defending you? But why?" asked Anais.

Gumball gave a weak shrug, wincing in pain. "Honestly, I have no idea. I don't know why it thought I was special. Maybe it just likes cats?"

The small pink bunny sighed. "So let me get this straight. An extradimensional reality warper saves your life, all because it has a preference for felines?"

"Well, it's the best theory I've got so far. Though it also said something about how it "wasn't my time" or whatever."

Nicole patted her son's head. "Whatever its reason, it saved your life, and we're all grateful."

Suddenly, the other memories of that night rushed back into Gumball's mind, and he felt a twinge of guilt. "M-marley! She's…"

Everyone's faces became solemn. "We know" said Nicole. "Darwin and Penny explained everything, although admittedly it was a bit hard to follow."

"You're telling me!" said Richard. "Something about an alien, and another alien killing that alien, and some guy called "Swamp" or something?"

"Uh, it's SWARM" Darwin corrected. "Seems like kind of a weird name for somebody to have."

"It's strange" said Gumball. "Marley was a total nut, she stalked and harassed me on a regular basis, and tried to kill us…so why do I miss her?"

Penny gave a look of reassurance. "Because in the end, she was trying to win something that most of us take for granted: the love of a parent. Shame that said parent proved to be a total bastard."

"The next time we see him, we're gonna kick his butt!" Darwin positioned himself in the formidable fisticuff pose. "Or at the very least, whatever equivalent he has."

"I'd…rather not have to deal with him again." Gumball shuddered, Penny silently agreeing. "At the moment, I just have one question."

Everyone leaned in, anticipating his query.

"Do you think I'll get a badass scar? Because that would be totally cool."

The room was filled with soft chuckles, more out of relief that Gumball was back to his old self than anyone finding humor in that statement. The azure feline seemed a little disappointed when he was informed that he was stitched up nicely and thus shouldn't scar. Penny briefly reassured him that even without a scar, he was still "a hunk", to use his own terminology.

Oddly enough, he didn't seem upset when he found out that he was well enough to go back to school. Perhaps it was because it was a symbol of what had been lost over the past few weeks. For now that Marley, SWARM, that dragon, and all that other weirdness were out of sight and mind, he could finally get back to some semblance of normalcy.

If only the cosmos was that merciful...

* * *

 **A/N: Well, that's the end of Act One! And what a journey that was! We laughed, we cried, we cringed, etc. Unfortunately, Empathomorphosis will now be going on a brief hiatus now that I'm finished with the first act. I've got a bunch of projects and finals coming up, plus I just need a break from writing in general. But do not fret, Empathomorphosis will return sometime this summer! In the meantime, feel free to let me know how I've done so far, what I could improve on, and your thoughts on the story as a whole. I will try to take all comments into account.**

 **Anyways, I need to go to bed. It's five in the morning and I'm writing a Gumball fanfic. Something is wrong with my life...**


	14. And thus we resume

Chapter 14: And thus we resume

 **A/N: Empathomorphosis may contain trace amounts of soy. If you feel yourself becoming attracted to members of the same sex...well, that's not this story's fault, that's just because you're discovering your sexuality. Come to think of it, I dont know where I was going with this.**

In the depths of fall, when most of the leaves have died but the snows hold back, the midday sun is not something that usually gives a lot of warmth. Rather, from its pitiful position only partway up the sky, the sun manages to provide only enough heat to keep things from outright freezing over, if it even manages to do that. Yet it sits there, bright as can be, despite its deficiencies. In fact, the brightness almost seemed to be mocking Gumball and Penny as they trekked through to the edge of town on that cool autumn day. The wind was a frozen gust that nipped at their exposed faces, and the sun only seemed to hang in the sky as if to say "You know, I COULD provide light and warmth and comfort to the world. But I choose not to."

In this sort of environment, one could hardly be blamed for simply turning around, heading back home, and laying wrapped in mounds of blankets wondering why you even bothered in the first place. But Gumball and Penny were on a mission. This was something long overdue, and too important to abandon over the rather depressing state of the weather.

Reaching the edge of town, the duo had their small, unassuming destination in sights. From a distance, one could be forgiven for mistaking it for an ordinary rock, albeit one with weird faded colors. But upon closer inspection, at a distance only reached if one were approaching the rock to begin with, one could make out a single sentence. Carved with extreme precision, they still bore the same unmistakable words that were first there when Gumball and Penny witnessed them being carved:

 _In memory of Marley_

True, it was carved in comic sans, because for god knows what reason Bobert's laser carving program only knew that font. But that didn't do anything to diminish what everyone knew.

Marley was dead, to begin with. There was no doubt about that whatsoever. Following their encounter with SWARM and that whole fiasco in the desert, some of the students, Gumball Penny and Darwin included, took it upon themselves to trek back to the site of her death, to see if they could gather any remains. But when they got there, the most they could find were black splotches and scorch marks. Her unwilling transformation into that glowing monstrosity had clearly obliterated the enigmatic bug-cat. Thus, the group came back from the desert with nothing to bury, or even enough ashes for an urn.

However, they didn't give up, not quite. The students knew that at the very least, Marley deserved some sort of funeral, or at least a grave site. But with all the adults in town either too busy or too lazy to help out, they had to come up with one from scratch. Which is hard, when you're a bunch of 13 year olds subjected to suburban pampering.

After several bad ideas were bandied around, including a "ceremonial Tide pod challenge", Darwin came up with the idea of carving a makeshift memorial out of a rock. It was simple, sure, and somewhat quaint, but a thoughtful tribute nonetheless. They needed something large enough to fit the words, but also small enough that they could carry it, with some effort. As luck would have it, they found the perfect rock on the northern edge of town, where the suburbs gave way to undeveloped land. Following hours of painstakingly dragging the rock over to the graveyard, their quest came upon another major roadblock.

As it turns out, you cant just take some random rock you find and put it in a graveyard. Rather, one has to reserve a spot, and as the gang found out, graveyard spots are ridiculously expensive. Though Jamie Russo and a few other of the more volatile students thought it fit to just break in and plant it in there, permission be damned, the others decided they'd rather not go to prison. And so, they painstakingly dragged it all the way back to wear they first found it, rendering the entire day and thus much of this paragraph more or less pointless.

But as the pair stood over the rune, they weren't really thinking very hard on the circumstances of how it came into being. Wordlessly, Gumball reached into hammerspace, pulling out the one thing he always brought to this site.

Tide pods.

As was custom for him to do, he opened up the bag and scooped some out, kneeling down in front of the rock and placing each individual pod in a circle around it, until it was completely surrounded by about twenty or so.

"Gumball?" The fairy broke his moment of contemplation and introspection. "I don't mean to discourage you, but isn't this kind of wasteful? I mean…it's going to rain tomorrow, and those pods will fall apart as soon as it does. Like all the other times."

It was entirely true. Both the rock and the soil around it were tainted with colors, ranging from orange to blue to purple to a few splotches of green here and there. The various rains had broken the soft casings and caused the colors to run out, radiating from the grave as they slowly blended into the dirt below.

"I like to think that it's symbolic of her eating them. Plus, I saw people do stuff like this in a movie. Granted, it was with rocks, but it's the same sort of concept."

Penny simply gave a warm smile. She didn't really have the heart to explain to Gumball that such a thing was typically reserved for Jews, which in all likelihood Marley was not. And if she was, well that raised a whole host of questions and unfortunate implications. Rather, she simply took his warm blue paw into her own hand.

"Of course. It's very thoughtful of you either way."

Gumball glanced down, increasingly downtrodden. "It's pretty pitiful though. I know it was a while ago, but I cant help but blame myself a bit for all of this. Maybe if I had actually paid some attention rather than simply trying to avoid her, I'd-"

"Gumball, that's enough." The fairy politely but firmly cut him off. "You know as well as I do that if we spent all our time dwelling on what we could have or should have done, we'd get nowhere in life. I feel awful about it too, but we cant bring her back." She put his hand on Gumball's shoulder. "The best thing we can do at the moment is try to remember her fondly."

"But that's just it! There's not even much to remember her fondly by! And all because of that monster..."

"I know, there's not a lot. But we have to try. I doubt Marley would want us moping over her like that."

"Sigh…I guess you're right, it's just…" Suddenly, he seemed to realize that it was ridiculously cold despite the bright sun overhead, causing him to immediately cringe and shiver. "Gah! I h-hate this s-stupid weather! I agree with the narrator, if it's going to be this cold it should at least start snowing or something!"

"Narrator…? I'm not sure if I-"

Penny's sentence abruptly halted as she gripped her forehead, clearly in pain. The kind of pain that's just enough to interrupt what you're doing, but not quite enough that you feel justified in actually taking time out of your day to do something about it. In other words, the worst kind.

"You alright there?"

"I'm fine" Penny lied. "Just uh…probably should get some asprin or something. Anyways, if there is a "narrator", perhaps they simply want you to apply common sense and wear something warmer." She followed this up with a wink.

Gumball simply snorted in response to her teasing. "Oh please, all you're wearing is that cheerleader uniform! How can you possibly be keeping warm under there?"

"My body generates a natural heat able to withstand all but the most extreme climates." She paused for a moment. "Though I guess it probably wouldn't be very useful at all in warmer weather."

The cat scowled. "I'm convinced that you're just trying to taunt me at this point."

The knowledge that Penny didn't even NEED that uniform on at all made Gumball all the grumpier. And hell, up until a few months ago she was perfectly fine going naked. Even when she was actually doing cheerleading at games or whatever, she didn't bother wearing her uniform. Not like any of the others did, but still. When Gumball queried on why she had chosen this, the red tank top and pleated white miniskirt, as her default outfit, Penny merely replied "it looks good on me." He couldn't exactly argue with that, because, well, it was true. But it still seemed like a weird change.

As it happens, there was a much more important reason she had taken to wearing clothes recently, one unknown to anyone but herself…

"So Gumball." The fairy once again snapped him back to reality. "Are we gonna go by the arcade or what? I hear they recently added Bigley to Ultra Bash Bros, and I've been dying to try using him!"

"Bigley?!" He replied with utmost disbelief. "There's no way he's in the game! The devs kept telling everyone that he was too big! I mean, he's a giant three headed griffon! How did they even get him to fit?"

Penny shrugged. "Well, we're not going to figure out how they accomplished that until we play it. Now come on, before the line gets too long!"

And with that, Penny grabbed Gumball by the paw again and the two took off, walking briskly in the direction of Elmore's obligatory arcade, a scant two blocks or so away. To the couple's joy, the line for Ultra Bash Bros wasn't particularly long, and after a couple slices of pizza they managed to play it, along with two other people that they had never met before and would never see again after this. But there was one slight problem that resulted in them never actually getting a chance to play the game. As it turned out, the other two kids ALSO wanted to play as Bigley, much like everyone else who was playing the game that day. Gumball attempted diffuse the tension by holding a spontaneous 4 way game of rock paper scissors, which he declared himself the winner of, in spite of him getting a rock and everyone else throwing paper, because of "law of reverse inverted continuity."

The other three were very quick to call this out as being not a real rule in the slightest, and thus began an epic hollering match rivaled only by the feuds folks get into at Star Trek conventions over whether Kirk or Picard was better. After about ten or so minutes of profanity, insult directed at the opponents' mothers, some poorly placed racial slurs, and a hamfisted yet unintentional reference to Damn Yankees, Penny finally broke from the argument to notice that while the four of them were busy shouting at each other, four other players had already walked up to take their place. Now it looked like none of them would be playing Bigley.

Oh well, at least she could watch one of these folks play as him. It was true, the developers somehow shrunk him down enough to be an acceptable size for a fighting game, as well as making him a little more bipedal than he usually is. Possibly to appeal to the furry crowd? Or whatever the bird equivalent of furries were. She would have liked to see more, but the chucklefuck playing Bigley seemed more concerned with pressing the taunt button to spam his signature catchphrase "THAT'S A SPICEY MEATBALL" rather than actually playing competently.

Like a pulse, pain once again shot through her head. Any hope that this was just a headache faded when it began to dawn on her that her right thigh was also in pain. Her boyfriend was so deeply embedded in the argument that he didn't even notice Penny darting off, making a break for the nearest restroom. It was just as well, the less he knew the better.

Luckily, the bathroom, though of smelly character and questionable sanitation, was completely empty, a rarity for women's restrooms. She quickly shot her way into the stall that seemed least filthy and slammed it shut, resolving to stay in there until her issue passed.

No, this had nothing to do with being horny or anything like that. Because she could control herself thank you very much. This was something quite a bit more serious. At the very least, her problem was "unsightly", at worst…well…she had no idea really.

For a short time after the events of the desert, she thought her wounds would heal. And for a brief period, they seemed to. But it was not to last. That sting from that eldritch moth beast had never truly went away. As Penny dropped her skirt to the floor, she could see it on her right thigh as it had been for some time now, a sharp, inky black gash, with small tendrils spreading out until they faded into the yellowness of her body. It was quite gross looking, and every time it flared up in pain it grew in size. Soon that skirt wouldn't be enough to cover it.

But that wasn't the most concerning part to dear Penny. She feared deep down that the scar in her thigh was only the prelude to something far, far worse. A feeling that was only confirmed by the continued pounding in her head. Doubling over in pain, positioning herself to throw up in the toilet, she once again felt that gnawing, horrible sensation in the back of her mind. The presence of thoughts that weren't her own. The presence of something malicious…

And she had a sinking feeling that something was trying to claw its way out


	15. Per Aspera Ad Caedas

Chapter 15: Per Aspera Ad Caedes

 **A/N: Empathomorphosis! The update consistency of Yugioh Abridged, but with none of the quality!**

In the vastness of space, somewhere in that stygian abyss between the stars, a solitary ship appeared from hyperspace.

To call this object a "ship", however, is the equivalent of referring to a cybernetically enhanced wooly mammoth as a "pachyderm": while technically accurate, it misses all of the important aspects. It was a ship, but at 12 miles long, it dwarfed not only earth's mightiest ships, but even its greatest cities. Shaped like a triangle with its edges cut off (thus technically making it a hexagon), the ship resembled a thick disk, thinner at the edges but bulging out as one got towards the center. Fitting for a vessel of such size, it was outfitted with enough gamma ray lasers, cyclotronic warheads, biocontagion bombs, multi-battery mass drivers, and quantum rail guns to slice its way through even the strongest of fleets. In fact, should it choose, it could easily render a planet into a molten slag, given a few hours, however it was rarely used for such a purpose.

The oddities only continued as one observed it closer. For its sinewy surface, eerie blue luminescence, and pulsing masses of flesh and steel fused together on the molecular level betrayed a crucial fact about this ship: it was a living being in its own right. A titanic biomechanical creature, this living starship was actually rather content with its lot. At least, whenever it had people to talk to, which was usually the case. But not this time. Despite being large enough to potentially house millions of people, this living warship, already sparsely populated, had been steadily losing passengers. By this point, there was only one entity remaining for the ship to talk to. And that entity just so happened to be the one responsible for the deaths of everyone else.

As you can imagine, it spent quite a while trying to avoid this. But as there was now a problem aboard, and the captain was the only person around that could fix it, it supposed that it had no other choice. Its consciousness navigated in an instant over to where the captain had been for the past several days, sleeping in a sort of meaty cocooned stasis in his personal quarters, and attempted to rouse him.

"Lord SWARM, there is an alert. A malfunction has occurred in the secondary engine chamber which requires manual input."

The robotic, almost bored sounding voice, which spoke in what most humans would identify as something close to a British accent of some kind, reverberated throughout the entire starship that was its body. Most people would have immediately shot up out of whatever activity they were doing at the sound of such a commanding voice, or at the very least turned their head to listen.

SWARM, however, was not most people. There wasn't even the least bit of acknowledgement. In fact, the ship could have sworn that its captain was now sleeping even harder than before, as though to subconsciously spite him.

Fortunately, the consciousness was not one to give up very easily. "I'm sure that whatever you're doing is quite important, but the fact of the matter is that there is Priority 1 Emergency in progress."

Though there was once again a lack of verbal response, it could tell by the cocoon shaking and tightening that it was clearly awake, but just trying not to bother. It only needed to push him a little more..

"In case you're unaware, my lord, a Priority 1 Emergency is a situation directly corresponding with the function of the-"

That did a trick. In a flash, a meaty, whip-like tendril shot out from under the cocoon, smashing into the floor hard enough to leave yet another imprint. Had anyone been standing in its path, they would have been ripped to shreds as the tentacle's razor sharp microblades sliced them up like organic salsa.

"That's not going to work on me, you know." Though still speaking in its same mechanical tone, the ship consciousness seemed almost exasperated, like it has been through this routine enough to memorize all the possibilities. "I was rather hoping you'd have learned that by now, but I suppose sixty third time's the charm."

"Is that why you've come here? To mock me?" Though muffled a bit due to being inside a shell of organic material, SWARM's distinctive voice, varying in pitch but perpetually pissed off, came through more than well enough to make any living being within earshot tremble with fear. Unless one were a genus loci with proven immunity to its attacks, then the otherwise fearsome voice came off as more arrogant and irritating.

"No, my lord, I could have done that at any time. Amazingly enough, I'm actually attempting to save your life. It's more than you deserve, so be thankful my programming renders me incapable of allowing you to come to harm through inaction."

"Spare me your fake sympathies," the entity snarled. "The only thing YOU deserve is to be torn limb from limb in the slowest, most agonizing way possible. And before you give me some snarky remark about not having limbs, I'll be happy to make some for you just to rip them off." A soft chuckling could be heard from the being resting inside the cocoon. "Maybe about fifty of them."

The ship, however, was unfazed. "Aside from that being a particularly bad waste of time," it responded nonchalantly, "it once again seems necessary to remind you that if you somehow manage to kill me, life support will shut off, and you will cycle through any remaining oxygen within a short period of time. Even if you seek to cannibalize my flesh, which I know you're considering, that wont protect you against the vacuum of space and its freezing temperatures."

Though he formed another tendril, as if poised to test out the ship's theory, by this point even SWARM realized that this was a futile endeavor. No matter how annoying this warship was, he would have to wait until after he made planetfall to destroy it.

"Fine, consider yourself fortunate that I have decided not to escalate this further. Now, why have you disturbed me?"

"Could you at least bother to come out of that shell? It's rather difficult to talk to you when you insist on shutting away the outside world."

SWARM grunted from within his cocoon. "That's the idea you little shit."

After a few moments of pause, something began to shift inside the fleshy mass. Reluctantly, the sphere split down the middle, folding away to reveal a strange figure, who nonetheless had an appearance all too familiar. Floating in the air in a dissonant serenity on two eerily majestic wings was a vaguely humanoid creature, its glowing blue skin as smooth as a balloon and its limbs devoid of features. From its lithe body sprouted a slightly bulbous head, punctuated by a tranquil face lacking in expression, and upon its scalped the esoteric entity was crowned by a pair of horns, vaguely cervine, and stretching for at least as long as his forearm.

In short, this was no ordinary fae creature. This slick, luminescent body was the epitome of the Karthuun overman, beautiful and terrifying to behold. This was SWARM in his pure state, exotic, wrathful, and currently not happy in the slightest about having to expend his energy coming out of his shell.

"Speak your mind, Rionnag." Having emerged from the chrysalis, the fairy's voice had lost its deep pitch, but still held that same commanding air of malevolence. "You've successfully annoyed me enough to pay attention, so I hope for your sake that this is important."

"Well," replied the ship consciousness, apparently named Rionnag, "as I was trying to get across to you earlier, there is a critical malfunction in the secondary engine chamber. One of the main pipes simply fell off. As the malfunction is not organic in nature, I cannot fix it on my own."

The fairy's eye twitched. " _That's_ why you woke me up? For maintenance?! Get somebody else to do it! Hell, if I recall, we have an engineer on board specifically to fix shit like this!"

"Correction, we HAD an engineer on board. He's no longer with us."

"A deserter!?" SWARM clenched his fists, his skin bubbling in preparation to transform into something massive and bash the ship out of rage. "Find me that bastard so I can impale him through his rectal cavity!"

"Oh, that would be easy, he's right over there."

With that, Rionnag activated a bit of bioluminescence to illuminate a dark corner of the room. There in plain view, slumped against the wall, was the miserable rotting form of a Karthuun corpse. A portion of its head was missing from the carcass, as though someone took a rather large bite out of it, though due to the severity of the lacerations it was hard to say whether this act was the cause of its death or done post-mortem.

"Would you still like to impale him, my lord?"

The fairy dropped his anger as he became aware of the corpse, a small amount of embarrassment hitting him. "Oh right, I forgot, I executed him…last week I think? Cant remember why but I'm sure it was a good reason. Tasted terrible too. Probably should've just thrown him out the airlock now that I-"

"I'd hate to interrupt," said Rionnag, in the kind of tone that clearly showed he actually had no problems interrupting, "but the engine pipes aren't going to fix themselves."

SWARM's brow furrowed. "Cant you get somebody else to do it? Last I remember, Blytruk was pretty handy with plumbing. Just get her on the job."

Rionnag responded by simply illuminating another corner of the room, shedding light on another rotting carcass. This one seemed to be in even worse condition, as its rectal impalement clearly did not go smoothly and several gashes oozing with unknown fluid and organ bits were still moist and festering.

"Huh, so that's what the smell was. You'd think Jorvynn would have gotten to cleaning that up by now."

"In fairness to him," replied the ship, "it's very hard to do one's job properly from the vacuum of space."

"Well what the hell is he doing out there?" the fairy growled, clearly not getting the point.

"I have no idea at all." Rionnag was picking up a bit of snark, which was about the best defense one had when interacting with someone as unhinged as SWARM. "After all, it certainly couldn't have anything to do with the fact that you threw him out the airlock."

"Wait, it's coming back to me now, he's the guy I threw into space." SWARM chuckled to himself. I must admit, it was rather amusing watching his body contort and inflate before shattering. I might have to try that again. Rionnag, is there anybody else aboard that I can experiment on?"

"No, there isn't. That's what I've been trying to get across to you in the first place. In the few weeks we've been in space, you've somehow managed to systematically slaughter your entire 200 person crew for the pettiest of infractions. There is NOBODY left but you. You are literally the only being capable of fixing the pipes."

SWARM pondered for a moment, unwilling to come out of this argument as the loser, and eventually found himself a loophole. "A reckless exaggeration!" He pointed his finger accusatorily at essentially nothing, "Zyych killed himself. I was not directly responsible for his death."

"It's amazing, I know, but people with a history of trauma have a tendency to kill themselves." Rionnag said, "Especially when they're taunted for days at a time by a psychopath who thinks transforming into the corpse of a guy's dead mom is classic comedy."

The fairy merely rolled his eyes. "Why are you acting like it's such a big loss? If he was so "damaged" that he was willing to kill himself after something that mild, then he had no business being among the ranks of the Karthuun. Really it's a net gain."

"Will you please just-"

Rionnag's retort was cut off by a loud scraping sound from deep within its bowels; the primary engine chamber. The ear splitting cacophony, rather similar to nails on the chalkboard, vibrated through the entire ship, effectively putting an end to the argument. But more importantly, it interrupted the dream vision, as Penny's view of this alien environment went completely dark.

* * *

She had awoken with a start, as one naturally does when a dream is ended by a hellish noise. Panting heavily, it took her a moment to adjust to the sudden darkness and realize that she was back in reality.

Or did she even leave reality? Granted, for the past few months she'd been having these weird…she wanted to say glimpses while she was in slumber. The first few times, she had dismissed them as dreams, since they took the form of them after all. But it was almost always the same. It was blurry and hard to make out, but several times, she had caught visions at night of a strange creature, something that looked like her, right down to pretty much being the same color, yet it wasn't her. She could tell that much. As for what the creature was doing, or where it was, the rest of the image was too obscure to ever make out. Occasionally she caught little flashes of clarity, details around the figure, like plants, or what seemed to be parts of a house. Whatever the case, the landscape felt peaceful.

This, however, this was different. Sure, it was a vision, and of a fairy, or "Karthuun" as she supposed they were called, but this was clear as crystal, almost like she was really there, and in a completely different environment. And not a speck of benevolence this time around…how could there be in the presence of that _thing_?

The fairy shuddered a little. She couldn't even so much as bring herself as to think that beast's name. In a way, it was like it emitted something which caused her, and everyone else, to feel automatic and instinctive hatred, fear, and general revulsion. Hell, even saying the name in the right context…

 _SWARM_

She said it under her breath, and that feeling immediately came rushing back. Memories shooting back from the dream she just awoke from certainly didn't help matters.

And that throbbing. That infected spot on her leg was writhing again. Not growing, granted; otherwise she'd be in pain. But just sort of shifting beneath the skin, as if to remind Penny that it was still there and still a great danger. And this was just an educated guess on her part, but it was probably connected to the dreams. Thus, the fairy resolved in the morning that she should finally try and do something about it. She closed her eyes slowly, hoping to at least get some restful sleep this time around…

"GAH!"

Once again, she shot back up, adrenaline pumping through her body. She thought it might have been just her paranoid brain, but Penny could have sworn that as she started drifting off to sleep, she saw a pair of deep, golden eyes staring right back at her…

"Oh well, sleep is overrated anyways" she said to herself as she pulled out her laptop. After all, for whatever reason she felt like she'd slept for about three months, so she wasn't really very tired anyways, even if she weren't too scared to fall asleep.

She clicked on the first thing she saw pop up on ElmoreStream, in this case being a long VSauce video about…well, she wasn't really paying that much attention. But hearing someone talking about something sciencey seemed like a good way to take her mind off of this awful stuff until morning. Then, she promised herself, she would try doing something about it, like talking to a doctor. But first, of course, she would go by Gumball's place and let him know. After all, the Watterson household, despite its quirks, seemed at times like an isle of stability in her life, always consistent in its weirdness. Surely, nothing would happen there that would distract from her quest. Like a surprise alien invasion, a surprise zombie invasion, a surprise zombie alien invasion, or anything like that…

Well, there was one thing. According to Gumball, Darwin had recently taken up the habit of ordering "weird pills and smelly stuff" from the internet that made him giggle a lot. But surely, it's not like these psychoactive substances would have any effect on the plot. Right?


	16. Her Dankest Hour

Chapter 16: Her Dankest Hour

 **A/N: Remember kids, always make sure you have parental permission before doing illicit drugs. After all, if you get caught, you gotta have somebody to take the fall with you.**

It was a bright and sunny morning as Penny approached the door of the Watterson household. Granted, it wasn't warm in the slightest, but as mentioned a couple chapters ago, that's about what you'd expect from late fall. But Penny hadn't let that bother her before, and she certainly wasn't going to start today. Knocking on the door, she noticed that unlike previous times she'd visited, the house was very quiet. Which was good for her, she needed to unload some personal details to Gumball, and it helped that things sounded relatively normal.

Oh how wrong she was.

The instant she opened the door, she was greeted with an overwhelming odor, a combination of smog and extremely smelly plant matter of some kind. The poor girl nearly gagged when the scent wafted over her, and as she held her breath to peak into the house, she found the source.

Right there, on coffee table, slightly obscured by the thick air of smoke, was the unmistakable presence of a bong. An active bong, at that, complete with bubbling water and a goldfish with his lips pressed against the top, using his left hand to light whatever "fuel" there was. He took a breath, letting the water bubble more as the smoke gathered in the bottom of the bong, before pulling the source away and taking a much deeper breath, inhaling as much smoke as he could before blowing it out with a sigh of satisfaction.

"Oh heya Pen, didn't know it was you."

Darwin didn't even bother to turn towards the fairy, instead opting to the continue staring at the television. Not that he was actually watching it, mind, his eyes were just looking in the general direction. The truth is that Penny could tell he wasn't focused on anything.

"Um…hey Darwin…" she asked tentatively, "do you happen to know where Gumball is?"

No response. Darwin continued staring blankly forward in the direction of the TV, blaring out more awful news about the state of the world and some kind of apocalyptic cult or whatever. Again though, he wasn't paying attention to it.

"Um, Darwin, are you-"

"Chillax woman!" Darwin finally deemed it necessary to turn towards Penny. "Look if you…if you want Gumball, he's somewhere over by the forklift…"

Penny raised her eyebrow. "Forklift?"

"Well I mean, he had breakfast, which included waffles, which involves forks so he's probably fork lifting this past equinox." With that, Darwin kicked back and lay down on the couch, satisfied he had given a quality answer.

"Could you just tell me where he is?!" Penny growled irritably.

A distant exclamation of "zoo wee mama!" coming from the kitchen answered that question for her. Leaving Darwin in his stupor, Penny made her way out of the living room to find her boyfriend in a very similar condition to his brother: laying around with a stupid grin and reddish eyes that seemed to be looking nowhere in particular.

"Oh hey…were you calling my name earlier?" The cat deemed it necessary to lift his head up, if only slightly. "Sorry I would have said something but uh…I was thinking deep and shit. Come curl up and think with me."

"Hey Gummy!" Penny gave an awkward smile. "You seem…um…comfortable?"

"Yeah man, fishy boy over there hooked us up with some wicked kush the other day and it's made our lives sooooo much better. Like, I cant even remember…uh…" With that, he trailed off muttering into the ether.

Under normal circumstances, Penny would be rather irritated that Gumball was ignoring her, but this situation was quite strange, even for the Waterson family. "Kush? I'm afraid I don't follow, is that some kind of smoke?"

"No no, it's uh, it's uh…" Gumball once again paused for a while, only to be snapped back to reality by Penny snapping her fingers in front of his face. "Ah, right! Uh, so I had an epiphany this morning. So you know how DLC for video games is really bad and shit? But like, people still buy DLC even though it's bad and they hate it? What if like we stopped buying things, like altogether? The look on people's faces would be like, epic…"

"Gumball, what on earth are you-?"

"Read…like, De Leon or something. He wrote about video games way back in the day I think…"

Well this wasn't working either. Penny was starting to get quite worried; she was unfamiliar with drugs, and as such rather confused at why her boyfriend was now going on anti-capitalist tangents about video games. Just then, the front door opened, and she heard a rather loud gasp.

"Darwin Waterson, WHAT are you DOING!?"

Nicole's assertive tone carried with it the kind of heaviness that could make even dictators and drug lords shake in their boots, Penny being no exception. Even Gumball raised his head again, a slightly concerned look on his face as he tried to make out what was going on.

But at the very least, there was a sober person in the house. Penny sighed with relief, confident that Gumball and Darwin's mom could get their brains functional again.

Confidence which was dashed the moment Nicole picked up the bong herself. "If ANYONE around here needs to be using marijuana, it's me! I'm the one who has to work all day!" she grumbled, lighting the bottom of the bong. She took a big gulp of the smoke that gathered, and almost instantly she appeared much more relaxed.

"Um…Mrs Waterson? I'm sorry to barge in unannounced but-"

"Not now sweet-cheeks, momma's gonna have some relaxation time." Immediately after saying that, she fell over onto the stairs, basking in bliss.

"Don't bother with them," said the voice of a little girl, "they're too far gone at this point."

Penny jumped out of surprise, and turned around Anais, who had apparently been standing in the corner this entire time, engaged in maximum stealth mode. "If you're wondering why everyone's acting like idiots, well, you can blame Darwin over there for that. Some time in the last couple of days, he decided he wasn't being "insurrectionary enough" or whatever, so to improve his edginess levels, he decided to use some of our money to purchase 100 dollars worth of cannabis buds and other related paraphernalia. It seems you've arrived just in time to witness our mom fall victim to the devil's lettuce."

"Wait, how did he do that? Isn't that stuff like…illegal?"

Anais shrugged. "I pointed that out to him, but he just gave me the cryptic response of "I will make it legal", whatever that means."

"Again, laws are a spook lil sis." Darwin mumbled from the other room. "Weed laws aint worth shit because they're not moral. Slavery was a law too you know."

"It doesn't MATTER what you think of the law!" Anais shrieked, clearly fed up with everyone. "You're still gonna get arrested if-"

"Anais just read Stirner already, gosh."

The small pink rabbit sulked out of frustration. "See what I mean?" she said to Penny, "They're all hopeless right now. And in case you're wondering, dad took some too and its somehow increased his appetite even more, if you can believe that. Now he's on an eating spree that conveniently leaves him out of this chapter." Anais put on a soft smile. "That being said, how can I help you today?"

Penny glanced around apprehensively. "Um, I was kind of hoping that I could talk to Gumball, but seeing as he's…" she looked over to the boy in question, currently preoccupied with giggling aimlessly, "…out of commission for the time being, I suppose you could be helpful. But could we go somewhere less…uh…"

"Less smokey?"

"Yes please! I'm pretty sure I'm going to develop lung cancer if I stick around here any longer!"

* * *

"Hmmmmm. I…see."

Anais wasn't usually one to brag, but she would consider it accurate to call herself "very smart". Five year olds doing trigonometry isn't exactly common in this society, after all.

However, if she had learned one thing from the ancient Greeks, other than the intricacies of pederasty, it was that the wisest people know when to admit that they're stumped. And Penny's bizarre wound caused a kind of stumping not seen since the days of Time Cube.

"So, are you sure this wound is connected to that giant stinger?"

Penny gave a nod. "I mean, it's black, weird looking, and originating from around the spot where I was hit by the moth. So yeah, I'd assume so."

"Well…how has it gone undetected? Didn't you have to be treated in the hospital yourself after that battle? How did the doctors not see it?"

The fairy gazed uncomfortably down at her exposed leg, her affliction maintaining an eerie stillness as it had since the morning. "That's one of the strange things about it though, I was treated at the same hospital as Gumball. But the doctors couldn't find anything wrong with it, at least not out of the ordinary. Plus, it faded away after a few days, so we all thought that was the end of it…"

"But clearly, it wasn't." Anais pulled out a large stack of books on a variety of subjects, ranging from insects to diseases and toxicology, and began to flip through them. Though she was able to go through them quite quickly, thanks to her uncanny abilities at speed reading, it was clear from the look on her face that she wasn't finding many answers, not even as the books began piling up behind her.

Penny finally deemed it necessary to break the silence. "So uh…any luck?"

Anais groaned, tossing aside a completely unrelated book about revolutionary syndicalism. "Color me bamboozled. Whatever's in your system doesn't seem to match up with, well, anything that I've found in my books. In addition to moths usually not possessing stingers, there's nothing I've read about that does…" she gestured again at the wound, "this kind of thing to people."

The fairy sighed with disappointment. "So, nothing?"

"Not quite." Anais reached back into the book pile, pulling out something about insect sting treatments. "There is one thing I can say for certain, and it's that your wound is not caused by poison, but by venom."

"Uuuuuh, aren't those the same thing?"

"Actually, that's a common misconception." She pulled out a small chart from within the book, with chemical formulas too complicated for Penny to understand. "Both are highly detrimental to organic bodies, for the most part, but whereas poison can be ingested from just about anywhere and can move relatively freely through the body, venom has to go through the blood stream. That veiny pattern on your wound isn't just for show, the toxin is crawling its way through your capillaries."

Penny gazed down again at the site in question, sure enough seeing where Anais was coming from. "Okay then, but how does that specifically help us?"

"Well, pretty much every venom has an anti-venom of sorts, and the way you make an anti-venom is by extracting the venom and doing some complicated shit with it." She shrugged her shoulders. "Look, I'm five, do you honestly expect me to be eloquent with words?"

"And how exactly are we going to extract it? I somehow doubt you have a syringe on you, and I'm definitely not letting you cut up my flesh. And the nearest functioning hospital is over an hour away from here."

Anais sighed. "Honestly, I cant even blame Darwin's stunt for that. Even during the opening weeks of the Great Panic, I still think it was quite the overreaction for those nuts to start bombing hospitals."

"Wait," Penny raised an eyebrow, "I thought they were freak accidents due to lack of maintenance in the boiler room or something?"

"No, that was the one in the next county over. The Elmore hospital was destroyed as part of those cultist attacks. Kinda spooky that those psychopaths were lurking in our midst the whole time and we didn't know about it until recently." She shook her head, getting herself back on track. "Anyways, there might be another solution. Last I remember, Teri's mom is a doctor, right?"

"Actually, yeah you're right." Penny's face brightened up a little bit, given that a solution seemed closer in sight. "If anybody has a syringe or something we can use to safely get a sample of the venom, it's Teri's mom. Teri herself might have a heart attack if she sees me like this though, but that's a risk we'll have to take."

"Right then!" Anais threw her books aside triumphantly. "I'd ask mom to drive us down there, but uh…"

"Yeah, she doesn't quite look to be in any condition to drive."

The girls both pondered for a moment. "Perhaps we could get your parents to drive us?" offered Anais.

"That would work, but in case Teri's mom decides to do something invasive, I'd like to have Gumball with me. And something tells me my parents aren't going to be pleased to see my boyfriend "under the influence", so to speak."

"So what, you're just going to sit around here and wait for him to sober up?"

The fairy glanced down yet again at her thigh, the infection remaining ominously still. "It's not ideal, but yeah. Plus, I feel like he deserves to know about my condition as soon as possible, so-"

 _THUNK!_

The girls were interrupted by the sudden arrival of one very stoned goldfish, who had apparently managed to take all of two steps into the room before faceplanting.

"Top of the mornin to ya, ladies" Darwin slurred, entirely unfazed by his fall.

"Ugh, Darwin, we're kinda in the middle of something here."

"Yeah yeah shuddup Anais, cuz I'm about to drop some philosophy truth bombs on y'all."

"Darwin…" Penny chuckled nervously, "Anais and I are currently discussing something and-"

"The whole icky moth attack wound thingy, I know. Before you ask, the weed has given me super hearing in addition to great insight." Darwin stood back up with surprisingly little stumbling. "Now prepare to be amazed!"

The girls glanced at each other, Penny confused, Anais simply irritated as Darwin dropped his "wisdom".

"Ladies…I have come to the conclusion that what we know as irony in the modern lexicon is merely a cover for people to say horrible things on the internet and not have to deal with the consequences. Irony as we know it no longer has anything to do with actual irony, merely a way of avoiding trouble."

The room was silent for a few moments. "I mean, I guess you're not wrong," Anais admitted, "but we still-"

"Yo Penny!" yelled Darwin, cutting off his sister. "You really ought to try this stuff. These bad boys can fit so much mental shenanigans in them it aint even real bro." With that, he pulled out a joint from hammerspace. "It's the gift of the gods my girl."

"Darwin!" shrieked Anais, "Will you PLEASE just go already?! We're actually trying to work out something important here, and neither of us want to take part in your drug-fueled tomfoolery!" The bunny smacked her head. "And you just made me actually use the word "tomfoolery" in a sentence! Go and babble nonsense somewhere else, we want nothing to do with it!"

"Actually," Penny spoke up meekly, "I am kinda interested in trying this…marijuana. Y'know, just to see what it's like."

Anais almost laughed out of disbelief. "You're kidding, right?"

"Well I mean, it's not like we can do much else at the moment while we're waiting for Gumball to sober up. Besides, how bad can one puff be? Worst case scenario, I'll end up spouting badly butchered classical Marxist talking points, which while certainly annoying, is nothing life threatening."

"Thaaaaaat's the spirit ol girl" said Darwin, leaning over against Penny's leg. "Take this joint and lighter and give it a puff, and aaaaallll your problems will fade into the Unicron."

Penny managed to grab both objects just before Darwin collapsed again into a giggling fit. Tentatively, and against her better judgement, she put the end of the joint in her mouth, brought the lighter up to the other end, flicked it on until it began smoking, and took a deep breath…

Almost immediately, the others observed Penny's eyes grow impossibly wide, the area right around them beginning to darken with the same color and veiny form as the wound on her leg, spreading across her face as she fell to the ground unmoving.

Needless to say, this was not the reaction either of them were expecting. Even Darwin was looking worried, to say nothing of Anais, who's mouth was agape with shock. "Is…is it supposed to-"

"No, definitely not!" he replied, somehow sounding almost completely sober. "You go fetch Gumball and Mrs Mom if you can, I'm going to try and wake her up!"

Though Anais found that her mom was too concerned with staring at corn chips to be of much help, Gumball managed to teleport his way up the stairs pretty much immediately after he received the news. Arriving at the scene, Gumball proceeded to immediately join Darwin in a tried and true method for waking someone up from unconsciousness: poking them in the face repeatedly.

"It's not working!" screamed Gumball, once it became apparent that it was not, in fact, working.

"Poke harder!" Darwin suggested in a panic.

This probably would have repeated itself for a while, but right about at that moment, Penny's arm shot up, to the relief of everyone.

However, this relief died as they noticed something immediately…off…about her. And by off, I mean the fact that her arm was steadily turning darker, and from her normally featureless hand a small, claw tipped finger shot up. Then another, then another, and another. They glanced at her other arm, still on the floor but twitching and undergoing the same changes.

And then there was her face. By now, her upper face had turned nearly pitch black, resembling a mask. Thin tendrils spread across the rest of her face until they blended in with the yellowness. The darkness of her face was offset by her eyes, which had turned unnaturally bright in the past few seconds. Gumball and Darwin may have been stoned to hell and back, but they could tell that something was seriously wrong.

"P-Penny…?" Gumball meekly croaked out, "…you alright there?"

In all honesty, Gumball wasn't sure what he was expecting. Did he think Penny would shake it off and return to normal? Did he think it would turn out to be some prank? Or perhaps he expected that this was some kind of out of place Halloween costume. Nobody knows for sure.

There were a lot of things he might have expected. But what he probably didn't expect was for Penny to sit up, scream unearthly like a banshee, and kick him in the face.


End file.
